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It’s been over three years since Tyson Pedro final fought. The Australian light-heavyweight competitor makes his return to the octagon on Saturday when he faces Ike Villanueva on the prelims of UFC Vegas 52.
Pedro entered the UFC in 2016 with a 4-0 document. Pedro gained every of these bouts by way of stoppage and not one of the 4 contests lasted longer than 3:05. The UFC matchmakers booked Pedro in opposition to Khalil Rountree Jr. for his promotional debut. Pedro gained that contest and claimed a “Efficiency of the Night time” bonus with a first-round submission. He adopted that with a first-round TKO of Paul Craig. The 2 stoppage wins had been sufficient to launch Pedro into the official UFC mild heavyweight rankings at No. 13.
Issues went sideways for Pedro after the Craig combat. He misplaced a September 2017 decision to Ilir Latifi earlier than submitting Saparbek Safarov in his first of three fights in 2018. Pedro ended that yr with back-to-back losses to Ovince Saint Preux (submission) and Mauricio Rua (TKO). Regardless of his 1-3 run, Pedro stored his top-15 rating till the Rua loss.
Pedro tore his ACL through the Rua combat, which served because the co-main occasion of UFC Struggle Night time 142. He underwent surgical procedure for that harm in early 2019 and spent most of that yr rehabbing. When Pedro was able to return to motion, the UFC booked him reverse Vinicius Moreira in February 2020. Whereas working with Metropolis Kickboxing to coach for that contest, Pedro tore his meniscus.
One other surgical procedure and extra rehab adopted. Whereas understanding at house after his second surgical process, Pedro re-injured his meniscus. Throughout his seek the advice of with the surgeon, Pedro was instructed, “it is advisable to redo the entire ACL and we’ll have to chop out the meniscus.”
Pedro instructed ESPN the surgical procedures, restoration and time away from the game had been troublesome.
“Some [parts of the recovery were challenging], a few of them I mentioned ‘f— this, I’m out’,” Pedro said. “However undoubtedly once I caught to my routines, like once I did the 75 Arduous Problem, I used to be tremendous. I needed to be coaching, as quickly as I finished coaching it began going downhill. It didn’t matter what sort of coaching; if I went and did one little little bit of higher physique coaching, I used to be tremendous. So coaching was at all times an vital factor for me, however I additionally began engaged on my thoughts and studying quite a lot of psychology books for preventing.”
Whereas getting ready for his return bout, Pedro helped his brother-in-law, UFC heavyweight Tai Tuivasa, train for his win over Derrick Lewis. He additionally labored with Eugene Bareman at Metropolis Kickboxing and UFC featherweight champion Alexander Volkanovski and his crew at Freestyle Preventing Fitness center. Exterior the fitness center, Pedro enlisted the assistance of David Niethe. who serves because the psychological efficiency coach of UFC middleweight champion Israel Adesanya.
Pedro is likely one of the largest favorites on the UFC Vegas 52 combat card. The UFC’s 205-pound division isn’t significantly stacked and the official rankings are populated with a number of fighters who’re on shedding skids and haven’t tasted victory since 2019 or 2020. With that, it’s not out of line to think about a state of affairs the place the 30-year-old Pedro enters the sunshine heavyweight rankings with a dominant win in opposition to Villanueva, who’s on a two-fight shedding skid and is 1-4 total, with 4 TKO losses, within the UFC.
UFC Vegas 52 takes place at UFC Apex in Las Vegas. The whole card streams on ESPN+.
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