Athletes
Cory Sandhagen Is Ready For A ‘Real Run’ At The Title
After A Year Away, Cory Sandhagen Feels Rebuilt And Primed To Pursue A UFC Title Beginning At UFC Fight Night: Sandhagen vs Song
Cory Sandhagen walked back to his corner on slightly shaky legs after the fourth round of his interim title bout against Petr Yan. Yan had knocked Sandhagen down for the first time in his career in the third round, and the Coloradan spent most of the fourth in survival mode. As his coaches tried to center him before the final frame, he looked across the Octagon and saw something he didn’t like.
Yan’s corner appeared to point toward Sandhagen and say something to the effect of, ‘He is breaking.’ Promptly, Sandhagen raised his arms in response and yelled, ‘What? Talk to me,’ before meeting Yan in the middle of the cage as they prepared for the last five minutes.
Watch UFC Fight Night: Sandhagen vs Song on ESPN+!
“I threw my hands up at the guys and was like, ‘You aren’t breaking me,’” Sandhagen told UFC.com. “That was a cool moment for me because as much as all these guys want to talk like they’re invincible, they're not. You never really know what you're made of until you're actually thrown into certain situations, and I was really happy with how I did, to be honest with you. I wish I wouldn't have gotten dropped in the third and had my legs all wobbly in the fourth. I kind of got my s**t together a little bit in the fifth, but, I did my absolute best in that fight on five weeks’ notice against one of the most dangerous guys in the division.”
Carrington Banks, Sandhagen’s coach and close friend, recalled the moment with a smile. When he saw Sandhagen respond to Yan’s corner, he knew he didn’t need to add any more fuel to his fighter’s fire.
“I realized he was talking to Yan, and I'm like, ‘That's exactly what we need,’” Banks said. “I just let him go. Cory is the type of guy that ain't going to let anybody see him down or son him or let them get the best of him, especially if they're being vocal and verbal about it in front of him. He’s going to step up.”
In the end, Sandhagen lost the fifth round and the fight via unanimous decision in what was UFC 267’s Fight of the Night. The result, though disappointing, wrapped a whirlwind year-long stretch in which the Colorado-native fought four times - three of which were five-rounders – earned two stylish knockouts over Marlon Moraes and Frankie Edgar and announced himself as a real player amongst the bantamweight elite. Even his split decision loss to former champion TJ Dillashaw came in a split decision close enough for Sandhagen to earn an interim title shot.
Cory Sandhagen Loves Crafting His Martial Arts Journey | UFC Fight Night: Sandhagen vs Song
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Cory Sandhagen Loves Crafting His Martial Arts Journey | UFC Fight Night: Sandhagen vs Song
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As he, Banks and his longtime coach Christian Allen made their way back to Colorado from Abu Dhabi, the close-knit trio had a handful of open and honest conversations about what transpired, and where Sandhagen needed to tighten up if he wanted to capture UFC gold.
“Any loss is a setback, but it gives you a kind of a gauge of where you are,” said Allen, who has worked with Sandhagen since the 30-year-old was in high school. “It's like ‘(This is) where we’re this close, and this is what we need to work on.’ So, instead of licking our wounds and being sad about it, we went back to the drawing board and were like, these are the things we need to adjust.”
Back To The Drawing Board
For the last 11 months, as the bantamweight picture continued its ever-entertaining shuffle, Sandhagen put his head down and got to work. Although already roundly considered one of the more intricate and effective strikers on the roster, Sandhagen hoped to round out his game to evolve that praise into a more well-rounded outlook.
Part of that journey included trips to Virginia to train with The Ultimate Fighter winner and jiu jitsu ace Ryan Hall. The two cultivated a relationship over the last few years, and Hall will join Banks and Allen in his corner at UFC Fight Night: Sandhagen vs Song. Sandhagen shares nothing but acclaim and admiration for Hall, even though following Hall’s schedule means abandoning his morning-person habits. Sandhagen jokingly equates his East Coast trips to someone visiting a wise martial arts master in an old kung fu movie.
“I lost track of all the days and who I was back here and all of that (laughs),” Sandhagen said. “Ryan is one of the best instructors and communicators that I've ever met in my entire life, so it is kind of like going and seeing like this Kung Fu master on the other side of the country who just has these hidden abilities. And he has kind of his own style. And I've really taken an eye for it. I think it's beautiful.”
When you speak to Sandhagen about fighting, the words “beauty” and “creativity” are bound to come up more than a few times.
To Sandhagen, mixed martial arts is as much a vessel for self-discovery and expression as any other creative art. Often while he watches fights, Sandhagen usually shuffles them into the categories of: “beautiful, weird or ugly.”
He in particularly fond of music videos and the ways auditory and visual projects can play into one another. Although he usually enjoys old hip-hop videos, he finds himself returning to the music video for Harry Styles’ “Adore You.” He also laughs about going through his “nerdy” era a little late in life, diving deep into different mythologies like Greek, Norse and Celtic tales. Sandhagen is currently on his own journey through Middle Earth, reading the J. R. R. Tolkien book The Silmarillion and watching Rings of Power.
Fight By Fight Preview | UFC Fight Night: Sandhagen vs Song
As he started finding more success, particularly after knocking out Moraes and Edgar, he had to come to terms with the fact that MMA is also entertainment for perhaps a larger group of people.
“It kind of bothered me, at first,” Sandhagen said. “There's this level of when things become like a spectacle, and it sometimes takes away from the sacredness of things, and fighting is a super sacred thing to me. It always has been. It's been like my passion, but like a deep, deep passion. This has been like my life's journey. When those things start to turn into spectacles, it does feel like a little like you're getting a little bit robbed of your sacredness, but you kind of just come around to that. You kind of just realize that like everyone is just living on a different set of values.”
Ultimately, Sandhagen is fascinated with creative processes perhaps more than what is being created, and when it comes to the practice of his own artistry, that requires a collaborative environment during training.
“I have to be able to argue with you about what you're teaching me,” Sandhagen said. “Christian and Banks have definitely gotten their fair share of me arguing with them like, ‘I don't know if that's good. I don't know if that's not good,’ and then us kind of getting into it about it sometimes. If I can't do that with people, man, that's not going to be fun. That's not like a creative process to me.”
Allen appreciates his pupil’s growth in confidence to challenge his coaches, and Banks, who has worked with Cory for the last three years, lets a smile creeps across his face when asked about experiences that hint at the kind of spirited conversations had between the three men.
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“You have to make the point really, really, really make sense because otherwise he's going to dissect it,” Banks said. “He's going to pick it apart because that's what you should do. When you're trying to see if something really is going to work, given that he is the guy who has to step in the cage and do the fighting, he wants to be sure that what we're showing him and what he's trying to execute is legit. He’ll pick apart the technique and ask, ‘What about this? What about that? I don't feel in position when I do this. This doesn't feel right.’ And it's our job to make sure that we can translate what we're trying to get through to him.”
It's a process that only strengthens the bonds that are inevitably tested in battle and adds to the confidence Sandhagen carries into the Octagon.
“The last thing I do before I walk into the cage when I give my coaches a hug is I tell them I love them,” Sandhagen said. “I mean that because I've never asked anyone to corner me that I haven't loved, and I will never ask anyone to corner me that I don't love. To me, that means I know that this person cares about me deeply. This isn't a business transaction.”
Finding The Sweet Spot
In hindsight, October 2020 to October 2021 represented an evolution in Sandhagen’s mindset. After losing to Aljamain Sterling via first-round submission, Sandhagen tapped into a more intense frame of mind when he competed, and in the most recent stretch of time, he said he found “a pretty good hold on the light switch.”
With that in tow, he and his team are excited to put the last year of work into practice against Chinese riser Song Yadong, who is coming off his own knockout of Moraes in March. Although the 25-year-old Team Alpha Male representative already boasts 27 professional fights to his name, Sandhagen believes he isn’t quite ready to challenge the best bantamweights in the world.
Cory Sandhagen Gets Flying Knee Knockout | Fight Night: Overeem vs Volkov
“I think he's super athletic, and I think that he's a very dangerous guy,” Sandhagen said. “I think that that experience is good for him, but I don't think that he's ever faced anyone — I know everyone says this s**t every single time, but he literally hasn't faced like anyone in the top five, so I could say that definitively.”
This fight does represent a first for Sandhagen in a way, too. For most of his UFC journey, he has usually occupied the role of less experienced up-and-comer facing a veteran.
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September 17 represents Sandhagen’s third career main event, and as the established title contender, he understands that he now has a different kind of target on his back and has formed an appropriate internal narrative about this fight for himself.
“It's just like, ‘I'm not letting this kid take my spot,’” he said. “He has plenty of years that he can, but he's not going to take my spot. He hasn't put in the time, and he hasn't put in the work that I've put in, and I'm not going to just let him walk in and take it from me.”
Banks, Allen and Sandhagen all convey their excitement about Sandhagen putting the last year of work on display. From a more well-rounded game to the sharpness with which he expects to mix up his entire skill set, Sandhagen has eyes squarely set on UFC gold.
He knows what it’s like to reach for the title and come up short, and while some might have dug their feet into the ground and remained headstrong, Sandhagen took a step back to pick himself apart the way he so often does his opponents. Now comes the culmination of a year away and perhaps the start of another title run he hopes develops into a title reign.
“I'm a humble enough guy and smart enough guy to know that if I want to be the champ and remain the champ for a long time, I need to like fix some stuff in my game,” Sandhagen said. “My game is really tight. It's really solid. It's top five for sure, (but) I don't want to be top five. I don't want to go the next five, six years I have in the sport (just) in the top five. That's not what I'm interested in. That's not what I signed up for. I want to be champ. I spent the last year really hammering that down and making sure that when I come back, which is now, I can make a real run at the title.”
UFC Fight Night: Sandhagen vs Song took place live from the UFC Apex in Las Vegas, Nevada on September 17, 2022. See the Final Results, Official Scorecards and Who Won Bonuses - and relive the action on UFC Fight Pass!
