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Julian Erosa | Cool And Calculated
Featherweight Julian Erosa Steps Back Into The Octagon To Face Darren Elkins With Hopes Continuing His Win Streak At UFC 314: Volkanvoski vs Lopes On April 12, 2025
One of the reasons why fight fans are excited by the Saturday showdown between Julian Erosa and Darren Elkins is because it’s a meeting of two gritty, hardcore veterans who are as no-nonsense as they come. It’s a clear appeal, not just to those outside the Octagon, but inside it.
“When you're finding a guy like that, he's not going to be fazed by anything,” said Erosa of “The Damage.” “I can't intimidate him before or during the fight. And so it's one of those fights where I just got to focus on beating him and doing the right things versus trying to maybe impose my will on him.”
Few have a stronger will than Indiana’s Elkins, and while Erosa isn’t too shabby in that category, what the 35-year-old has specialized in is having an uncanny knack for taking an opponent’s slightest mistake and capitalizing on it. And when facing hot prospects that are more prone to making those mistakes, Erosa has been at his best. Just ask Christian Rodriguez, Charles Jourdain and Sean Woodson, all of whom were submitted by the Las Vegan.
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“I think with the guys that are up and coming, you can still kind of, not necessarily get in their heads, but you can definitely impose your will a little bit and you can see little cracks here and there.”
Erosa has led fellow vets into fight-ending errors before (see his March 2024 win over Ricardo Ramos), but he’s not counting on Elkins making any rookie mistakes.
“I know that with Elkins, there's going to be none of that,” he said. “There's no way I can intimidate him. I would say a lot of the fighters in the UFC have already passed that test. You are not going to really intimidate anybody in the UFC, but those young kids, I think the lights will get to them a little bit. The stage will get to them a little bit. A guy like Elkins, he's been in this rodeo so long that this will be his 30th UFC fight, which is the majority of his pro career.”
The respect is evident, and rightfully so. But as Erosa looks to extend his current win streak to three, the man with 15 UFC bouts under his belt in his own right isn’t about to let that respect affect what he’s going to do on fight night. That means whether he’s facing a prospect or veteran, he’s chasing a finish, while also preparing for the possibility of a three-round war.
“I think I have a higher percentage chance of knocking him out versus submitting him, but I am not going to shy away from going for the submissions that I like,” said Erosa. “I got two guillotines in my last two fights against tough guys, but I know he's going to be a harder guy to submit. He's not going to be a guy that wants to tap; I think that I'm going to have to put him out. But I have adjusted a little bit in the sense that, especially earlier on when he's a bit less likely to want to tap or go out on a choke, I think I'm going to be a bit more defensive with the wrestling and just try to keep it on the feet. And I think that'll eventually lead to me knocking him out. I still think I could probably get a submission, but later on in the fight, when the submission is more likely than early on. I think early on I'm going to really be looking for more of a knockout sequence, and then if the fight goes further, then I can adjust accordingly.”
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If all goes according to plan, it will be Erosa’s third win in a row in the notoriously tough featherweight division. He’s been here before, with a three-fight winning streak in 2021-22, but that was followed by two losses to Alex Caceres and Fernando Padilla. This time, Erosa is cautiously optimistic about the future should he emerge victorious over Elkins.
“I always say I'm just focused on the fight coming up, and obviously, there's aspirations that you have after that, but, for me, I just want to go out there and perform to my best ability,” he said.“That's one of the things that I can focus on for now, just trying to go out there and being able to perform as close to a hundred percent of my abilities as I can. Because I feel like sometimes if you fog the future up with so much other stuff, it can kind of get in the way of that. So,obviously, Darren Elkins is on my mind. He's a veteran. I think if I get a win over him and if I make it look easy, that can kind of slingshot me, especially coming off of a three-fight win streak into a Top 15, maybe even a Top 10 fight.”
UFC 314: Volkanovski vs Lopes took place live from Kaseya Center in Miami, Florida on April 12, 2025. See the final Prelim & Main Card Results, Official Scorecards and Who Won Bonuses - and relive the action on UFC FIGHT PASS!
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