After Recent Successful Stretch, Alex Caceres Believes He Deserves Ranked Foes

Don’t look now, but Alex
Caceres has quietly won seven of his last eight appearances in
the Ultimate Fighting Championship.

“Bruce Leeroy” put on a show at
UFC on ESPN 46, earning “Fight of the Night” honors for his
unanimous decision triumph over Daniel
Pineda in Saturday’s co-main event at the UFC Apex in Las
Vegas.

“I felt it was a good performance. I felt I was dominant,
especially in the first and third rounds,” Caceres said at the
post-fight press conference. “The second round he had a pretty good
grappling exchange on me. Other than that I felt I showed a lot of
heart, showed a lot of skill. It was a fun fight.”

Caceres appeared to be on the verge of finishing his opponent with
some brutal body work in the third frame, but Pineda displayed his
toughness in making it to the final horn. Caceres commended his
opponent for his tenacity.

“I hit him in the body pretty hard. I caved him down with leg
kicks. I almost shook him a whole bunch of times with the hands and
he kept coming back,” Caceres said. “The referee kept warning him
‘the fight’s gonna end.’ But he showed a lot of heart and kept
stepping forward. I totally respect that.”

Caceres, who was a cast member on Season 12 of “The Ultimate
Fighter” and made his Octagon debut in 2011, is in the midst of the
best stretch of his professional career at 34 years old. Caceres
mentioned a fight against Giga
Chikadze as one potential option, but he also is eyeing a title
bout against Yair
Rodriguez — which would require the Mexican star to upset
Alexander
Volkanovski at UFC 290. Caceres dropped a split decision to
Rodriguez in the UFC Fight Night 92 main event on Aug 6, 2016.

“I know we had that Giga fight fall through a couple times. That’s
a fight that’s always fun to have. He’s karate guy so it would be
fun to fight him,” Caceres said. “I want Yair
Rodriguez to win the title so once I climb those rankings so I
get to take it from him. So that’s always a fun fight to look
forward to. I did have a five-round fight with him down in Utah, he
edged me via split decision. It was very close — too close for me
to let it go.”

Regardless of what the future holds, Caceres believes it’s time for
him to start facing opposition with a number beside their name.

“I think fighting ranked opponents from here on out would be the
fastest route to get [to a title shot] for sure. I dont know how
many fights lie ahead of me. I am 7-1 out of my last eight outings,
that’s got to count for something,” he said. “There’s people that
get rankings out of two to three fights, or they’re coming off a
loss and one fight and they’re getting rankings. .I think it’s
deserving of me to fight some ranked opponents, two or three should
put me in contention for the title.”