LAS VEGAS – When he opened his UFC tenure with five straight wins, Augusto Sakai was on the verge of heavyweight stardom.
Then he ran into a buzzsaw in Alistair Overeem in September 2020 and had his momentum halted with a fifth-round TKO loss. Midway through 2021, he was knocked out by Jairzinho Rozenstruik and experienced a skid for the first time. And later that year, Tai Tuivasa shut him down with a second-round KO.
With three straight setbacks, Sakai (15-4-1 MMA, 4-3 UFC) seems to be in pretty desperate need of a win when he takes on Serghei Spivac (14-3 MMA, 5-3 UFC) on the UFC on ESPN 40 takes main card Saturday at the UFC Apex in Las Vegas. The card airs on ESPN and streams on ESPN+.
