Shoe-beer drinker Tai Tuivasa really, really thinks he deserved $50,000 bonus

The current state of the heavyweight weight class? “F*ck, this division is boring.”

That’s the summary from Tai Tuivasa – the hard-hitting, shoe-beer-drinking, again-winning UFC heavyweight who picked up his latest victory on Saturday at UFC 221.

“There are heavyweights fighting for like three rounds,” the 24-year-old said. “I think it’s boring as sh*t. Like, what happened to the days of going out there and giving what the people want to see, and that’s some blood and the rest of it?

“I suppose everyone doesn’t want to get a (loss) on their record, but I really don’t care. I want to go out there and put a show on for the fans.”

And that he did. On UFC 221’s pay-per-view main card at Perth Arena in Australia, Tuivasa (7-0 MMA, 2-0 UFC) delivered a one-sided beatdown to fellow heavyweight Cyril Asker (9-4 MMA, 2-3 UFC). Tuivasa then drank a post-fight beer – from a fan’s show – and then got to the real point he wanted to make in his post-event interview: that the heavyweight division needs exciting fighters such as himself.

“I don’t know if it’s (a matter of) no more steroids around. I don’t know,” he said. “But I’m not afraid to throw down. I’m definitely not afraid to lose. I think you’re in the wrong sport (if you are). You win some; you lose some.

“I just want to keep getting paid. This time I didn’t.”

Was he surprised Asker – whom he called “a tough dude, real tough dude – was able to take so many shots?

“Surprised I didn’t get the 50K,” said Tuivasa, referring to his lack of a $50,000 UFC 221 fight-night bonus.

If not for the first-round TKO win, Tuivasa said he deserved a bonus simply for his cageside beer chug.

“I should’ve got ($50,000) just for the ‘shoey,'” he said.

He planned to talk to UFC matchmaker Mick Maynard about it.

“Micky, come on, bro. What’s the goes? I should’ve got it, I reckon,” he said. “What more do you want us to do?”

Tuivasa, who turned to MMA in 2012 after playing professional rugby, argued that fellow main-card winner and fellow Aussie Tyson Pedro, who submitted Saparbek Safarov with a kimura, also deserved some bonus consideration.

“You know, we say what we’re going to do when we got out there,” he said. “I think we both should’ve got ‘Performance of the Night.’ I think everyone I know thought we should have got ‘Performance of the Night.’

“(Pedro) nearly ripped someone’s bloody arm off, and I elbowed (Asker) back to France – and (we got) f*cking nothing. Know what I mean? Now I have to go home and cry all night.”

Well, not straight home. He said he planned to continue celebrating with an after-party. After that, he’s open to everything. He dismissed rumors of a post-fight confrontation with fellow heavyweight Curtis Blaydes, who beat Tuivasa’s teammate Mark Hunt in the co-headliner, and simply suggested their paths may cross at some point in the future.

“Bro, I really don’t care,” he said. “We’re going to fight. Everyone is going to run into each other. As long as I prepare myself, I’m going to rock up and fight. It doesn’t matter who. I’ll see everyone.”

Any final words?

“Someone give me 50K,” he said. “Thank you.”

For complete coverage of UFC 221, check out the UFC Events section of the site.