Steve Erceg sits alongside FOX Sports’ Niko Pajarillo, watching a replay of his UFC 301 flyweight title fight with Alexandre Pantoja, the anguish he feels growing easier to read the further into the fight they get.
What starts with the Perth native making a few jokes and explaining the brief interaction he had with cutman Teddy Lucio about his signature walkout track, “You Don’t Mess Around With Jim” by Jim Croce, quickly shifts into a frustrating watch for the 29-year-old contender, who dropped a unanimous decision to the Brazilian champion in Rio de Janeiro on May 4 with scores of 48-47, 48-47 and 49-46.
Throughout the 30-minute film session, Parajillo tries to point out the positives, praising Erceg’s performance and suggesting that it’s only a matter of time before he’s back challenging for the title again, only for the 29-year-old to quickly swat away those forecasts with pragmatic acknowledgements that nothing is guaranteed.
Three months after the fight and a month removed from his sit-down film session, Erceg remains irked by the outcome of his UFC 301 main event battle.
“It bothers me all the time, constantly,” Erceg told Sportsnet with a smile flashing across his face in the days leading up to UFC 305 where he’ll face off with Kai Kara-France in the co-main event. ”Obviously there are a lot of positives to take out the fight. Obviously it was a great opportunity, I learned heaps, I learned that I am at the top level, but I don’t like losing.
“It sucks.”
While Erceg remains frustrated with the result and elements of his performance, most everyone else that watched the fight came away thoroughly impressed with the efforts of the first-year UFC fighter that had made his promotional debut on short notice in Vancouver just 11 months earlier.
After beating David Dvorak at UFC 289 and Alessandro Costa five months later at UFC 295 in New York City, Erceg put himself in the title conversation with a sharp, sudden knockout win over veteran Matt Schnell at the start of March that elevated his record to 3-0 inside the Octagon and extended his overall winning streak to 11.
With Pantoja lacking a clear challenger and pencilled in to defend his title in his hometown two months later, the unheralded Australian got the call, venturing to Rio and proving to everyone, including himself, that he has what it takes to hang with the very best the 125-pound weight class has to offer.
“First of all, it’s super-validating because I thought that I was at that level for a long time,” said Erceg, acknowledging the biggest positive takeaway from his narrow defeat. “To come in and find that I’m not just an egomaniac and have nothing to back it up — at least I went in there, gave it my all, and did hang in there for the full five rounds, so that was validating.
“That started dawning on me in the third round,” he answered when asked about that feeling of belonging taking root during the fight. “In the first and second, I was sort of just ‘Okay, I’m gonna do this, I’m gonna do this. Ah, he’s taking a break here. He’s done five rounds before, so I’ve got to be cognizant of that.’
“I’m thinking about, looking at all the little things he’s doing, because he’s been there before, and then third round, I was like, ‘Hey — wait a minute! I’m pulling ahead of this guy. I can beat this dude!’ That’s when it started dawning on me.
“Looking back on it, I wish I started pushing the pace earlier, and even putting more volume on. I think I was worried about getting tired. I’ve done five rounds in the gym plenty of times, and it’s always gruelling and exhausting, but I was surprised how well I got through five rounds in the title fight, so I wish I pushed harder.
“But live and learn; that’s all I can do.”
That last line rings out like the “maybes” he steadily threw back at Parajillo each time he suggested a hasty return to title contention during their re-watch a month earlier: quick little comments designed to keep his mind from lingering in the disappoint of “the one that got away” that actually underscore why an extended stay in the championship conversation and future title opportunities are quite likely for the talented Australian.
All too often in sports, when athletes experience great success early, there is an expectation that it will continue; that further brilliant seasons or championship wins are preordained and promised, when nothing could be further from the truth.
At the same time, there have been a plethora of examples of competitors that have struggled to recover from the night they almost achieved their ultimate dream, and those constant reminders that future championship opportunities will need to be earned are there to ensure that Erceg doesn’t become one of those competitors.
“I’ve been watching the UFC, and sports in general, for a long time, and you do see guys come along and they look amazing,” began the flyweight standout, who carries a 12-2 record into his pay-per-view meeting with Kara-France on Saturday. “They get to a world title shot and then I don’t know what it is, and this is what I’m trying to avoid: there is something after they lose a world title fight — whether they almost won or arguably should have gotten the decision or whatever — and they can’t put fights together after that.
“What I think it is is they can’t get over the fact that they got screwed or ‘I shoulda won that fight! I’m the best in the world!’ Obviously one of the big ones is Dominick Reyes — he had such a good fight against Jon Jones and then he couldn’t get a fight back, and I don’t want to be that guy.
“I understand that because I got this opportunity, it doesn’t mean that I’m guaranteed to get back there and win it next time, so I’ve got to do everything within my power to put together a win streak and not be deterred because I lost a fight. Even if I did get the exact same opportunity tomorrow, there is no guarantee that the fight goes exactly the same way as the last one, and if I change this, I would have won.
“I’m very aware that he’s gonna make adjustments as well as me. The fact that he probably thought it was gonna be an easier fight than it turned out to be does play a big role too. I need to be so much better to make sure that, first of all, I can get another opportunity, and second of all, if I do get there, I’m gonna blow him out of the water either way; doesn’t matter how good he is or how he’s looking at it.”
The first step in his journey towards earning another championship opportunity comes this weekend at RAC Arena, where the local boy will get to live out a childhood dream.
“When you’re a kid and you’re playing AFL football or rugby — over there, you’re playing hockey — and as a kid and you’re thinking about what it’s like playing at the highest level of the sport. You walk into the arena and everybody is yelling, you kick a goal to win the game, the roar of the crowd…”
He trails off for a split second, clearly taken with the image he’s crafted in his head and the reality that he’ll get to live it on Saturday.
“That’s what you’re thinking about and that’s the opportunity I get. I get to walk out, the roar of the crowd as I walk in, and I put on my performance. Obviously I’m looking to win, do it impressively, and have the elation and the rowdiness of the crowd going off in Perth, screaming my name.
“It’s what dreams are made of and I’m looking forward to it.”
While fighting in front of family, friends, and an abundance of raucous fellow residents of Perth and the surrounding areas will be a dream come true for the UFC sophomore, stepping into the Octagon opposite Kara-France is admittedly going to be a bit surreal for Erceg.
Though there is only a couple years age difference between the two, the 31-year-old Kara-France is a pioneering figure of sorts in the ANZAC region — a long-time fixture on the regional scene who earned an opportunity to compete on The Ultimate Fighter then got the call to join the UFC roster.
Although there had been other fighters from Australia and New Zealand that had made the jump to the Octagon over the years, seeing a competitor from your division, someone that you’ve watched for years make that jump justifies your own ambitions and validates your belief that one day you’ll be standing alongside the best in the sport too.
“It’s surreal and it’s gonna be exciting,” Erceg says of facing the returning Kara-France, who hasn’t competed since dropping a debated split decision to Amir Albazi in June 2023 after a concussion forced him out of a clash with Manel Kape last fall in Sydney. “I know we’re not gonna pussyfoot around; we’re gonna go in there and try to hurt each other. The crowd’s gonna love it and it’s gonna be a good old-fashioned slugfest.
“He’s very good on the feet,” continues the recent title challenger, offering his assessment of his opponent and how he’s prepared for Saturday night. “Obviously the biggest weapon he has is his overhand, so a lot of the things I’m trying to do is to make sure either I can counter it or I can get out of the way of it.
“He’s also — people are gonna say, ‘Why don’t you just take him down?’ Well he’s very good at stopping people from taking him down, and even when you gets taken down, he’s good at getting to the turtle and switching out, that sort of thing. I’ve watched his game plenty, I do have plans based around those skills — what he does well, what he does poorly — and we’ll see if they work; that’s all you can do.”
There is that pragmatism again.
In an age of unbridled — and many times unearned — confidence, Erceg’s outlook is refreshing, and genuinely feels like one of the many reasons he could work his way to further championship opportunities in the future.
First, he gets to live out that childhood fantasy of competing at home on the biggest stage in the sport, surrounded by friends and family that weren’t necessarily able to join him in Vancouver or New York, Las Vegas or Rio de Janeiro.
But they will be there on Saturday, and that means everything to Erceg.
“It will be a special moment for me,” he says when asked about garnering a victory this weekend. “It will be something that obviously, as I said earlier, having the vision of a kid playing high-level sports, I’ll actually get to have that experience of everybody screaming in the crowd, which will be amazing.
“But also, to do it in front of my family and friends that don’t necessarily get to go all around the world — to do it in front of them, get to talk to them, and enjoy it with them after will be a special moment.”