After UFC Fight Night 96, Louis Smolka is ready for a title shot: 'I think I can beat Demetrious'

PORTLAND, Ore. – If he manages to add a fifth win to his current streak on Saturday, Louis Smolka thinks he’ll be ready for a title shot.

That doesn’t mean, however, that the flyweight thinks he’s got an easy task ahead of him at UFC Fight Night 96. Originally scheduled to face now-injured Sergio Pettis, Smolka (11-1 MMA, 5-1 UFC) welcomes Brandon Moreno (11-3 MMA, 0-0 UFC) to the promotion in a position in which he’s the one with everything to lose.

Facing a short-notice replacement opponent certainly has its drawbacks. But, in spite of the stakes, the thought of not saying yes was never on his mind.

“I think this is a dangerous fight,” Smolka told MMAjunkie. “This guy’s got nothing to lose. He’s going to come out here and try to take my head off and swing like he’s literally got nothing to lose, because he doesn’t. He’s going to try to take me out real fast. I think it’s a dangerous fight.

“But I don’t know, I feel like the UFC put a lot into promoting this. I put a lot into bringing people out here. I put a lot into the camp. I invested a lot of time in cutting the weight, so I have to do it. I made the commitment. (Pulling out) was never an option. My coach was like, ‘So, we found a guy – this is the only guy that’ll take the fight.’ And I was like, ‘OK.’”

UFC Fight Night 96 takes Saturday at Moda Center in Portland, Ore. The main card airs on FS1 following prelims on FS2 and UFC Fight Pass.

A cast member on “The Ultimate Fighter 24,” which is currently airing on Spike, Moreno carried a seven-fight victorious professional MMA streak before suffering a loss in his first appearance on the show. Smolka, in turn, comes off four consecutive wins – capped off by a bonus-winning TKO over Ben Nguyen at UFC Fight Night 91.

Currently ranked No. 13 in the USA TODAY Sports/MMAjunkie MMA flyweight rankings, Smolka might not be paired off with his ideal competition – whose last name, by the way, he’s yet to learn how to pronounce. But he still hopes that a win on Saturday will be leverage enough for a stab at the 125-pound title.

Divisional champ Demetrious Johnson is already set to fight whomever comes out victorious of the current season of “TUF.” But, if the Hawaiian contender does end up happening soon, Smolka thinks he’ll pull off the win.

He’s just not really sure how.

“Definitely, I want to fight for the belt after this,” Smolka said. “I would like to fight for the belt next fight. I think I’m ready. I think I can beat Demetrious. I don’t have a real reason why I think I can.

“It’s like gambling, when you have a hot hand in craps or whatever, you don’t really know why you’re winning but you’re winning. That’s how I feel. I don’t know why I’m going to beat him, but I’m going to beat him.”

The lead-up to Saturday’s scrap didn’t come without its layers of drama. After Pettis pulled out, Smolka published a video in which he talked about this opponent’s “hurt vagina.” The internet didn’t take too kindly to Smolka’s tone, and he quickly saw himself on the wrong end of Reddit mockery.

While Smolka defends that his remarks had no sexist undertone, he now thinks Pettis’ injuries might be more serious than he first thought.

“I don’t even see how it was sexist,” Smolka said. “In my mind, I was saying I thought his injury was fake. I wasn’t saying, whatever, I thought he was a (expletive) for getting hurt. I thought he was faking his injury. I legitimately thought that.

“Now they’re saying he has a torn – well I thought that because Duke posted something saying he had a minor injury, so I was all upset. I thought he was just faking it, and now they’re saying he has a torn LCL or something, so I don’t really know what’s going on with that situation.”

Pettis aside, Smolka does take issue with his colleagues’ lack of commitment to their scheduled scraps. Having shown up with injuries before, the flyweight believes that some of his fellow fighters might have become pickier than their positions allow.

“My last fight, I had a broken toe, and the fight before that I had a concussion,” Smolka said. “So, I mean, that’s how we do things. You don’t come into this fully healed. I understand if you’ve got a broken arm or something that’ll physically prevent you from fighting, that’s understandable.

“It seems to be becoming a bigger issues. Once they’re comfortable, they want to pick and choose their fights, they want things to go their way, ‘I’m in the UFC so now you guys cater to me.’ But really, the only people that should be catered to are the champions.

“They’re the only guys who deserve to be catered to, the rest of us, we need to earn our spots, we need to earn our way up those rankings. We need to take the fights and we need to show up and we need to perform.”

For more of Smolka’s thoughts on his immediate and near UFC future, check out the video above. Or, for the full interview, click on the video below.

For more on UFC Fight Night 96, check out the UFC Rumors section of the site.