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Tuesday, Jun 02, 2015

UFC FN 68: Tim Boetsch Will be Looking For Stoppage “From Start to Finish”, Despite Switch to Five Round, Main Event

Tim Boetsch kicking Hector Lombard (photo via UFC.com/ ZUFFA)

By Kelsey Mowatt

Tim Boetsch has competed in several memorable and pivotal bouts during in his UFC career, but “The Barbarian” knows his next fight is right up there, in terms of its importance.

At UFC Fight Night 68 on Saturday, not only will Boetsch (18-8) take on the legendary Dan Henderson (30-13), but he’ll do so in the card’s main event. Originally, the June 6th card was supposed to feature Ryan Bader taking on Daniel Cormier in the headliner, but the latter was moved to fight Anthony Johnson last month (after Jon Jones’ arrest).

Recently, Boetsch appeared on Full Contact Fighter Radio, and while doing so, he had this to say about what this Saturday’s fight means.

“Yeah. It’s quite an honor to be in the main event on a UFC card, and you know, to be fighting Dan Henderson alone is quite an honor,” said Boetsch. “For me, he’s one of the fighters that I’ve looked up to my entire career, and tried to model myself after.”

“He’s done things that every young fighter dreams of doing, so to be able to fight him is a huge opportunity,” Boetsch furthered about the 44 year-old, former Strikeforce and PRIDE champ. “To have it be in the main event, I can’t even really describe how it feels, but it’s amazing.”

Boetsch has been aware of his main event billing for a little while now, as the UFC confirmed his bout with “Hendo” would be the headliner in early May.

“I actually got two days notice before everybody else knew, which was quite nice, because it usually happens the other way around,” noted Boetsch. “I find out from the Twitter verse, or some of my friends who are in the know call me, and say ‘hey, your fight’s changed’.”

While every fighter is proud when they’re booked for a main event bout, in the case of the UFC, it does mean the possibility of fighting for 25 minutes instead of 15.

“Monte (Cox, Boetsch’s manager) called me and asked me what my conditioning was like, and asked me if I was ready to do a main event, and five rounds, and I was really happy to be able to accept the fight”.

And has the introduction of an extra two rounds altered Boetsch’s game plan?

“No, it really doesn’t change things,” the 34 year-old middleweight stated. “I have to have the awareness that there’s the potential to be 10 more minutes of fighting, so I obviously need to be able to fight that long, but I’m already there. We’re training a lot of rounds already. But just having that mindset that now, potentially, I might have to go 25 minutes trying to finish him, doesn’t change my approach.”

“I’m not going to rest early and save some for later, because that gets you into trouble in the fight game. For me, I need to go in there and look to finish the fight from start to finish…”

UFC FN 68 will be hosted by the Smoothie King Center in New Orleans, Louisiana.

For more on Boetsch and his thoughts on facing Henderson, head here.

posted by FCF Staff @ 8:00 am
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