January 11, 2024 10: 00 pm ET
Waldo Cortes-Acosta neverever idea he would be combating Andrei Arlovski. Yet, here he is simply days away from dealingwith the living legend.
It’s a surreal match for Cortes-Acosta (10-1 MMA, 3-1 UFC), who hasactually been enjoying Arlovski (34-22 MMA, 23-16 UFC) battle consideringthat he was a teen. Cortes-Acosta, now 32, feels proud of how far he’s come in MMA now that he’s battling a previous UFC champ at Saturday’s UFC Fight Night 234 in Las Vegas.
“When I began MMA, I neverever idea I would be combating him,” Cortes-Acosta informed MMA Junkie in Spanish. “I idea perhaps I would battle other fighters like perhaps if I got truly, actually excellent, and I would get to battle Jon Jones. But battling Andrei Arlovski, I neverever idea about it. I started combating around 2014, 2015, and I idea in a coupleof years he would be retired, however no. He’s kept going, and now we’re in 2024, and he’s still at it.”
When Arlovski made his expert launching in MMA, Cortes-Acosta was simply 7 years old and hoping to endedupbeing a expert baseball gamer in the Dominican Republic. When Arlovski