UFC Fight Night 111 winner Alex Caceres drops some wisdom, talks 'disheartening' end to scrap

SINGAPORE – Alex Caceres isn’t entirely satisfied with the circumstances of his UFC Fight Night 111 fight but, hey, he’ll take it.

Caceres (13-10 MMA, 8-8 UFC) was originally set to face UFC newcomer Wang Guan on Saturday, but ended up welcoming Filipino fighter Rolando Dy (8-5-1 MMA, 0-1 UFC) to the octagon instead. It took a doctor declaring Dy unfit to continue for the scrap to be stopped before the start of the third round, but Caceres had asserted plenty of dominance by then.

The opponent switch may have ended up in Caceres’ favor, but the featherweight saw it two ways.

“I was disappointed that they switched out my original opponent,” Caceres told reporters after the preliminary card bout at Singapore Indoor Stadium in Singapore, which streamed on UFC Fight Pass. “I feel like he might have been more prepared. But I also kind of let this quick switch fuel the fire. I know that he thought he could beat me on two weeks’ notice.

“But literally, when I was in there, every time I hit him, I was telling myself he doesn’t belong here with me. I’ve been here too damn long, I’ve been training too damn hard, and I’m too damn fast, too damn fine. He can’t touch me.”

While Caceres’ habitually creative striking looked crisp as ever, he also brought some danger on the ground on Saturday. Dy, however, was able to escape a rear-naked choke attempt and get the fight back on the feet – where “Bruce Leeroy” continued his onslaught.

With the TKO, Caceres got his first finish since 2014. But, as good as the win feels, he would have liked to prove another point.

“I did want to showcase some of my grappling, because I’ve been working on it a lot,” Caceres said. “I felt like that was one of my biggest holes in my game. So I’ve been filling in that hole with a shovel every single day at practice. I’ve been working on it, man, and I really wanted to show a little bit more of that. I was looking for that submission. I really wanted it. But hey – you’ve got to win with what you can.”

In hindsight, Caceres believes a finish was well on its way regardless of the doctor’s intervention. But he understands why his opponent was so visibly frustrated with how the bout came to a halt.

“I could see in the second round, before coming out, I didn’t think he wanted to be in there anymore, to be honest with you,” Caceres said. “I hit him pretty hard with that left hand and it closed his eye pretty well. I know he couldn’t see the kicks coming or the punches coming.

“I can expect it’s pretty disheartening for him. I know that he wanted to keep fighting. He showed it, too. I was disheartened as well – I wanted to keep going.”

Now recovered from back-to-back losses to Yair Rodriguez and Jason Knight, Caceres says he is injury-free, open to facing anyone and ready to get back to training as soon as he gets home.

And, whatever his octagon future holds, Caceres will bring some newly acquired wisdom to help brave it. After an exciting, but inconsistent UFC run that certainly carried a lot of criticism along the way, the featherweight says he’s done trying to conform to expectations other than his own.

“It really took a big load off my shoulders to not live for anybody else’s expectations or anybody else’s image of perfection – to be myself,” Caceres said. “They say that to be impeccable is to be without sin. And they say sin is to be untrue to yourself. So I stayed true to myself. I believed in myself. I didn’t let anybody tell me that I wasn’t powerful enough to hit nobody hard or I wasn’t quick enough.

“I dispelled those words away from my mentality and my spirituality. And I told myself every single day that I do have the power, I do have the speed. I am good enough. It’s something that’s very hard. It’s something we lose as we grow up from being a child. We become domesticated. And I guess that’s the thing. I’m un-domesticating myself from society’s views of perfection.

“For I am my own person, and I can be perfect in my own way. And all I have to do is give it my best every single day. Even though my best might not be the best all the time, but as long as I put forth the effort, and the intention, and try, and struggle very hard for what I believe in, I know I’ll do well and I’ll always come out on top.”

To hear more from Caceres, including the pep-talk he gave Dy after their bout was stopped, check out the video above.

And for complete coverage UFC Fight Night 111, check out the UFC Events section of the site.