UFC Fight Night 96's Andre Fili: I'm not in this sport to be a (expletive) about it

PORTLAND, Ore. – UFC featherweight Andre Fili might have gone about his normal schedule – spar, eat, have fun, repeat – had a fan not tagged him on Twitter.

When Brian Ortega (11-0 MMA, 3-0 UFC) withdrew from Saturday’s UFC Fight Night 96, said fan suggested him as an apt replacement. Good idea, Fili thought.

With a text to UFC matchmaker Sean Shelby, Fili was back on the active roster, five months after suffering the first knockout loss of his career courtesy of a brutal flying kick from Yair Rodriguez at UFC 197.

Set to fight Hacran Dias (23-4-1 MMA, 3-3 UFC) on the FS2-broadcast prelims of Saturday’s fight card at Moda Center in Portland, Ore., Fili (15-4 MMA, 3-3 UFC) is gearing up for his seventh UFC fight.

Until that hop online, Fili wasn’t thinking much about getting back in the octagon as a professional. He was thinking more about reframing his experience as a professional fighter. When he started, the stakes were a lot lower. As a result, he told MMAjunkie, “I had success early on, because I just wanted to beat people up.”

A 12-1 record was the clearest evidence of that. But then came a contract with the industry-leader, and with it the pressure to perform as a prospect from the famed Team Alpha Male. He started bouncing between wins and losses.

The knockout, however, prompted Fili to think more deeply about what he took into the octagon every time he fought. What he discovered was a lot of baggage.

“I think the biggest thing to take from that was to not overanalyze,” he said. “Going into the Yair fight, he throws a lot of crazy stuff, so it was like all this time of ‘Prepare for this, get ready for this, and counter this’ instead of just fighting and beating somebody up.

“It’s easy to make this thing more complicated than it really is. When I got into this sport, I was 14 or 15, and I started fighting because I liked to fight. When the stakes get higher, you start adding all these things. It’s easy to get lost in the sport of things, instead of just realizing that no matter what happens, your job is to beat someone else up. So I’ve really gotten back to trusting my training and going off my instincts.”

That means beating people up, which is what Fili hopes to do Dias. What comes next? Who cares. Fili promises to fight them all and think about it later.

“I’m not in this sport to be a (expletive) about it,” he said. “Why else would you be in the UFC if you didn’t want to fight the best guys in the world and make the most money and make the biggest noise?

“I’m not one of those dudes who’s obsessed with being a world champion. Obviously, that’s a goal, but I want to put on fights that people remember, and I want a number next to my name. I want what comes with beating all these ranked guys.”

Fili is not currently on the list of top-15 list of UFC featherweights. But if he beats Dias, who’s No. 14 in the USA TODAY Sports/MMAjunkie MMA featherweight rankings, that could change quickly.

To hear more from Fili, check out the video above. Or to hear the full interview, click on the video below.

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