Charalampos
Grigoriou
now has his foot planted firmly in the
Ultimate Fighting Championship door.
The
Serra-Longo Fight Team bantamweight will make his promotional
debut opposite
Chad
Anheliger as part of the
UFC Fight Night 239 undercard this Saturday at the UFC Apex in
Las Vegas. Grigoriou enters the cage having rattled off four
consecutive victories, all of them finishes. Oddsmakers have
already installed the former Combat FC champion as a 2-to-1
favorite.
Grigoriou nailed down his spot on the UFC roster via
Dana White’s Contender Series, as he put away Fury Fighting
Championship titleholder
Cameron
Smotherman with punches in the first round of their Week 2
pairing on Aug. 15. The end came a mere 60 seconds into Round 1.
Smotherman operated behind his jab and a few multi-punch bursts but
never had a true opportunity to get in gear. Grigoriou blasted the
Metro Fight Club rep with a left hook and floored him with a right
cross, then pounced with hammerfists and punches to prompt the
stoppage.
“I’m very focused, and I believe in myself,” he said at the
post-fight press conference. “I know I have skills, and I know I’m
going to be a problem in the UFC and the bantamweight
division.”
The 31-year-old Grigoriou points to his training at the revered
Serra-Longo camp as the primary catalyst in his rise to prominence.
There, he trains under former UFC welterweight champion
Matt Serra and
longtime striking coach Ray Longo. Daily access to world-class
stablemates, including ex-UFC bantamweight titleholder
Aljamain
Sterling, provides an additional boost to Grigoriou’s
confidence.
“We have the best gym in the world, the best coaches in the world
and the best teammates in the world,” he said. “Because of them,
I’m here now. I’m training with them. I’m learning with them. We
are family. To have teammates that you feel that you’re family
[with], it’s very important because you know that they’re going to
be there for you, even when you lose. They’re going to be there for
you for everything. We’re not just teammates.”
Grigoriou hails from Cyprus, a small island nation in the
Mediterranean Sea perhaps best known in MMA circles as the
birthplace of onetime UFC middleweight champion
Michael
Bisping. He has not forgotten his roots.
“Anything is possible,” Grigoriou said. “Seven years ago, I was
fighting in basements in Cyprus. Now I’m here in the UFC. When I
think about the old times, this is what motivates me. I don’t want
to go back. I had my ups and downs. I struggled a lot to be
here.”
Two other organizational newcomers are set to take their first
assignments in the Octagon, as
Mitch
Ramirez meets
Thiago
Moises in a three-round lightweight affair and
Danny Silva
toes the line against
Joshua
Culibao in a three-round featherweight tilt.
Ramirez fills in as a short-notice replacement for
City Kickboxing’s
Brad
Riddell. The 31-year-old
Syndicate MMA export sports an 8-1 record, with seven finishes
among those eight victories. Ramirez last appeared under the
Legacy Fighting Alliance flag on Dec. 15, when he disposed of
Eiycaireon
Tavarres with punches a little more than two minutes into their
LFA 173 confrontation. He suffered his only pro defeat on DWCS, as
he was victimized by
Carlos
Prates in a second-round technical knockout in August.
Silva, meanwhile, trains under
Cub Swanson
and
Ben Jones at
the UFC Gym in Costa Mesa, California. He last fought on Week 8 of
DWCS, where he improved to 8-1 and punched his ticket to the UFC
with a unanimous decision over
Angel
Pacheco on Sept. 26. The 27-year-old Silva has secured five of
his eight career victories by knockout or technical knockout.
Canaan
Kawaihae was responsible for the lone blemish on his resume,
having eked out a majority decision against him at LFA 148 in 2022.