Chan Sung Jung, ‘The Korean Zombie’, squares off against Hawaiian Dan Ige in the main event of UFC Fight Night at the UFC Apex facility in Las Vegas, in what is being billed as ‘veteran vs. rising star’ clash.
Both, Chan Sung Jung and Dan Ige are coming into the featherweight division fight with slightly differing results and vastly opposing ends of their careers.
Jung’s last appearance in the UFC ring came back in October, when he lost to Brian Ortega in Abu Dhabi, which snapped his two-fight winning streak. But at 34, a battle-worn ‘Zombie’ will have to weigh the question - ‘how long can I carry on’?
When News18.com posed this question to Chan Sung Jung, ‘The Korean Zombie’ said he doesn’t consider this as his last fight but sounded confident.
“I feel very comfortable and it’s because I was able to do my training camp here in the states (US) and I’m surrounded and being supported by a lot of professionals so I feel great," he said.
Chan Sung Jung, who is ranked 4 in the featherweight division, lost to Brian Ortega and even though he was disappointed, he’s “expecting a potential bigger opponent bigger fight."
“At the same time, we can’t guarantee how their ranking is going to be from the first place the third place so we just got to kind of watch and see how it goes between the ranks to get before I can have my next week," he added.
His opponent Dan Ige, comes into the fight on the back of a 22-second stoppage win over Gavin Tucker in March. In fact, Ige has won seven of his past eight fights and has been calling out Jung for some time now.
Chan Sung Jung though is not flustered. He has been preparing for some elbows to come his way and he says he is ready with the block.
“I’m pretty confident that I’m not going to be hit by an elbow and it’s mainly because for the seven weeks that I’ve been practicing, we’ve been practicing that defence for a while," he said.
When asked how he got the nickname ‘The Korean Zombie’, he said: “Okay, so I was told that I fight like a zombie so then therefore, my teammates kind of gave me that nickname. My teammates gave me that nickname so when I did fight in Japan, all they did was add Korean to zombie. So that’s how I got Korean zombie."
Watch UFC Fight Night - Jung vs. Ige on June 20, 2021, LIVE on Sony Ten 2 and Sony Ten 3 (Hindi) channels from 4:30 AM IST
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