Athletes
Cameron Saaiman | A Long, Hard Year
Returning Bantamweight Prospect Emotional As He Readies To Face Malcolm Wellmaker This Weekend
After taking a step back over the last year, Cameron Saaiman is all smiles as he counts down the days, hours, minutes until he can stride out to the Octagon again on Saturday night in Kansas City.
“It doesn’t feel like it’s been a year, which is actually crazy,” began the South African bantamweight, who faces off with fellow Dana White’s Contender Series (DWCS) grad Malcolm Wellmaker in a combustible preliminary card bout this weekend at T-Mobile Center. “Everything feels familiar; it’s weird. It feels like I’m back home, which is good, so I’m very happy.”
The 24-year-old hasn’t fought since last March, when he landed on the business end of things in a clash with another promising DWCS alum, Payton Talbott. It was his second straight defeat after beginning his career with nine consecutive victories, and it prompted Saaiman and his coaches at Team CIT to press pause in order to make some changes that they all agreed were necessary.
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While there were certainly technical elements and skill-based pieces that needed attention, some of the most important work centered around the routine elements in a fighter’s life that aren’t always afforded time and attention, like strength and conditioning and weight cutting approaches.
Prior to his hiatus, Saaiman fought five times in 16 months, leaving no time for anything other than staying on the hamster wheel and getting right back down to business as soon as he was able to get back into the gym.
“We don’t have an offseason, so you’re going from fight camp-specific training to fighting, and then you have two, three weeks break and you go into the next fight camp,” said Saaiman, explaining one of the benefits of his time away. “So there is no time to address certain strength and conditioning modules you want to change or weight cut protocols that you might want to test out to see if it works better for your body.
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“There is a lot of stuff like that where now that we’ve had a year off, we could actually test these things.”
In addition to focusing on his strength and conditioning program, his approach to weight cutting, and addressing some of the issues that presented themselves in his losses to Talbott and Christian Rodriguez, Saaiman spent a great deal of his time away focusing on some of the personal growth items that also can get brushed to the side when you’re in the midst of chasing down your dreams.
“When I beat Josh Wang-Kim on the Contender Series, it was like this snowball after that,” he said with a smirk. “Once you’re in it, you’re in it, and you have to adapt quickly, you have to learn quickly, and I think these losses have given me the time to take one small step back, learn more about myself and what I want to do, what I like, how I want to approach fights.
“I’m not a patient person, and I do believe to some extent that God sends adversity my way to teach me some patience,” continued Saaiman, who admitted his patience (or lack thereof) was tested multiple times during this break, as the urge to hustle back into the Octagon started to rear its head. “There’s a lot of personal stuff like that where if you don’t want to listen the fourth, fifth, or sixth time — it’s gonna happen at some point.
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“As a kid coming into the sport, you get surrounded by a lot of people and you kind of get complacent in terms of who you are allowing into your inner circle, so being able to address stuff like that. Focusing on the stuff that is important to me, focusing on who I want to be as a person, outside of fighting, and making that connection between who we are as fighters and who we are as people.
“It’s been a personal journey, and it’s been a very good one, and there’s a lot of introspection that goes with that,” he added. “Taking a step back, taking a break, and revisiting everything I think was the right move, and I can’t wait to show how good of a move this was.”
Listening to Saaiman explain some of the things that were addressed in his time away, some of the areas where he felt he needed to make changes, I’m reminded that he’s only 24, and that these are lessons that we all tend to learn in those years between 21 and 30.
It’s easy to lose sight of the fact that some of these athletes are still young adults figuring things out on the fly, choosing to look at them instead for where they are and what they’re doing, rather than remembering how challenging those years were navigating, in most cases, a more modest life.
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“Once you’re in here, you don’t see age,” said Saaiman, speaking to his own personal experience competing at the highest level in the sport. “You see these names, you see a ranking, you see something that you want to work towards and, at the end of the day, you get quite tunnel-visioned, so I do think taking some time broadens the picture a little, and it helps.
“It’s about making the right directions at the right time and executing on all the hard work,” he added, identifying where he made some mistakes in the past. “I think we’ve never had a problem to work our butts off, it’s just when there is a fork in the road and we have to take either a left or a right, I think that’s where I’ve personally slipped up a few times.
“But those are little tests, and we passed them with flying colors,” he said with a smile. “Now I get to be here, I get to be in Kansas City, which is amazing — I love this city — and after finishing Malcolm Wellmaker, I’m gonna ask the UFC to never put me in the APEX again because my track record isn’t that great there, but it’s amazing in arenas.”
Saaiman’s first three bouts took place on pay-per-view events in arenas, and he won all three, while each of his last two appearances came at the promotion’s base of operations in Las Vegas, and the results did not fall in his favor.
Back in an arena on Saturday night, he’s looking to hold to the pattern, and is excited about the opportunity to share the Octagon with the promotional newcomer Wellmaker.
“He’s good; he’s really good, and I think it’s a compliment to myself and him that he gets to fight someone with experience, and I get to fight someone that really made a name for himself on the Contender Series,” he said of this weekend’s matchup with the unbeaten Contender Series graduate, who stopped Adam Bramhald last season to earn his place on the roster. “When you get to this level of fighting, I don’t think you have to look too far to find a good guy.
“If I throw a rock out of this window, I’m probably hitting some of the best fighters in the world down in the parking lot. When I got the name, I was just excited — it was a date that made sense, it was outside of the APEX, which was great, and I took it as a compliment.
“He’s a very good striker, they want a good matchup on the card, and I think we’ll be able to deliver that,” continued Saaiman, his speaking pace quickening just a little as he discussed getting to get back to work this weekend. “I was solely focused on getting the job done, and that’s what we’re gonna do.”
A year away, especially at his age and relatively early in his fighting career, brings with it the potential for massive growth, especially with someone as clearly talented as Saaiman.
Though there are definitely going to be changes to his game and all-around development, the affable South African promised that, at his core, he’s still going to be the same “Most Savage Player” once he steps back into the Octagon on Saturday.
“You’ll still see the fun ‘MSP,’” he pledged, still a little revved up. “I’m still gonna come out smiling, and I’m gonna have fun in there; that’s something I can guarantee you. I’m always looking to put up an exciting fight. Win or lose, in my 11 professional bouts, I don’t think I’ve ever had a boring fight, and I pride myself on that, so I want to continue that streak.
"I think it’s just gonna come down to getting back into that creative flow,” Saaiman suggested when asked how he gets himself back into the win column this weekend. “I think when I fight at my best, I fight very enthusiastically. I get to be creative and mix things up — mix my striking with my wrestling, with my grappling, wherever the fight goes.
“If I go out there with an open heart and do what I do best, we’re gonna get the finish, and I’m really looking forward to it.”
Having spoken with him several times in the past and listening to him on Tuesday, it’s clear that these first couple years on the UFC roster were a whirlwind for the engaging and promising prospect, and that pressing pause was clearly something that he needed to do in order to properly reset things.
Just a handful of days away from striding out to the Octagon again, his excitement is palpable, even through a Zoom call, but so too is the fact that being back on the cusp of competing means more to him than words can express.
When I asked him what a victory this weekend would mean, the excitement turned to vulnerability as Saaiman welled up, tears gathering in his eyes.
“It’s… it’s… this one is gonna feel really good,” he said as a wave of emotion rushed over him. “I’m actually getting emotional.
“It’s gonna feel really good,” he added, taking a big deep breath to ward off the tears and allow himself the ability to speak. “It’s been a… it’s been a good year, but it’s been a tough year, so it’s gonna be a fun one to get back.”
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