Cory Sandhagen has his sights firmly set on earning a shot at the UFC bantamweight title with a win in his next fight.
Sandhagen (17-5 MMA, 10-4 UFC) is preparing to face former UFC flyweight champion Deiveson Figueiredo (24-4-1 MMA, 13-4-1 UFC) in the main event at UFC Des Moines on May 3.
With bantamweight champion Merab Dvalishvili (19-4 MMA, 12-2 UFC) expected to rematch former champion Sean O'Malley (18-2 MMA, 10-2 UFC) at UFC 316 a month later, "Sandman" believes a victory over Figueiredo would put him in prime position to fight for the 135-pound title next.
"I think that if I go out and do that (beat Figueiredo), I do think that I can be the next guy to fight for the belt", Sandhagen told MMA Fighting earlier this week. "If you think about it, O'Malley or Merab wins, regardless of who it is, the entire world wants to watch me and O'Malley fight really badly. That's what the fans are really asking for.
"And then Merab...I'm the only one that he hasn't had to fight in the top five right now. So I do think that if I can go out and be super impressive, I'll put myself in a spot where 'Hey, there's no one else, so let's choose Corey,' which would be really nice to have happen to me (for) once instead of me getting so close and then losing and then having someone else jump in there. So that's what I'm banking on.
"I'm going to even ask them if I could be the backup fighter in June right after that one, so I'll just train right through that for another couple weeks, and hopefully that will be kind of what my year looks like: fighting for the belt at the end of it."
