Bellator 152's Alessio Sakara realizing dream of Italy fight for major promotion

Alessio Sakara

Only a handful of familiar names can be brought up when discussing meaningful Italian MMA fighters. Alessio Sakara is near the top of that list.

For that reason, it was natural for Bellator to sign Sakara (17-11 MMA, 0-0 BMMA) for a co-main event showdown with Brian Rogers (12-8 MMA, 5-6 BMMA) at Bellator 152 on April 16. The event marks the organization’s debut in Italy and emanates from Pala Alpitour in Turin with the main card on Spike following prelims on MMAjunkie.

Nicknamed “Legionarius,” and with Roman artwork tattooed on his body, Sakara is a proud Italian but hasn’t fought in his native country since February 2005. He’s back more than a decade later, though, and with significantly more notoriety attached to the sport, Sakara said returning home is a dream come true.

“I fight all over the world but I’ve only fought in Italy four or five times at the beginning of my career,” Sakara told MMAjunkie. “I come back to fight in Italy in front of my friends, my family and now I’m very focused and happy. This is a very good promotion for MMA because people understand MMA promotion of Bellator. It’s different.

“Now MMA in Italy is very famous. I promote a lot of MMA in Italy with my history. Now people know and it’s very good because I have a lot of fans and on April 16 I’ll have a lot of fans in the arena.”

For years, Sakara was the primary representative of Italy on the UFC roster. He debuted with the company in October 2005 and had a lengthy 15-fight tenure, which lasted until his final octagon appearance in October 2013.

Sakara’s release from the UFC was the product of poor results. He suffered four consecutive losses, three by stoppage, and was handed his walking papers. He rebounded from the rough skid in September with a first-round TKO win in a regional promotion in Austria.

The 34-year-old felt the win marked a rebirth of his career. After a long stint at middleweight, Sakara has moved back up to the light heavyweight division for the first time in nearly a decade. In his younger years, Sakara could handle the rigorous balance of training, dieting and weight cutting. However, with nearly 14 years of pro experience now under his belt, he said it was time to throw out the weight cutting aspect.

“Fighting at light heavyweight for me is better because I have more weight in my training and I feel very good energy when I’m training,” Sakara said. “My mood is very good. When I fight at 185 it was a problem. I cut too much weight; I had a lot of injuries for a long time because of the punishment to my body. When I went to the gym I only thought and about diet and foot and wasn’t thinking about my skills and training.

“I had many years of injury and my body was broken in the fight. But now I’m 100 percent and I feel very good. My phycology is very good and I’m very happy to fight in a big promotion with Bellator.”

With his Bellator debut fast approaching Sakara said he feels he is in a good position to produce consistent results. Although he’s competed just twice in more than two years, the 34-year-old doesn’t believe he’s regressed as a fighter. In fact, he argued that quite the opposite is true.

“I’m a complete fighter,” Sakara said. “People don’t understand I have very good jiu-jitsu, very good wrestling, but sometimes I love striking the most because I love knocking out the guy. I started with boxing so it’s normal I want to fight in the striking. But you need to be complete. At 205 I have more conditioning. I can do it all no problem.

“My only prediction is a war and I want to knock him out to give a good fight for people all over the world.”

For more on Bellator 152, check out the MMA Rumors section of the site.