""That was the game plan - pick this motherfucker apart and tag them up. Make them bleed, get them frustrated and then find the finish in the second round," he said. "But I just had this feeling in my heart and I was like if I go in there and just push the pace, hit him quick and hard to let them know, like, 'Hey, big man, you haven't been hit like this before yet', and just show them what's up.""
""I mean, so we changed the game plan right before we went out there," Asplund explained. "I asked Kaitlin [Young] right before we walked out, like literally right before I said, how do we fight one last time? Like, what do you want out of me? And she said, 'honestly, you win however you want tonight.'""
""I said, 'swear to God?' She said, 'I swear to God,'" he recalled the exchange. "I was like, all right, well, I'm gonna make it a firefight then... She slapped my butt, told me to go out there and do what we do, and we fucking did it.""
Steven Asplund developed elite pace and cardiovascular conditioning after dropping from nearly 500 pounds into the heavyweight division. That cardio became his signature weapon on the regional scene and earned him a short-notice Contender Series opportunity. He originally planned a patient strategy to pick an opponent apart and finish in the second round but felt compelled to push tempo and hit fast and hard. He asked coach Kaitlin Young for permission to abandon the original plan, received full support, and turned the fight into a firefight, knocking out Anthony Guarascio in 16 seconds and then cutting a famous promo directed at Dana White.
Read at Cageside Press
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