UFC 159's Steven Siler: 'I just want to put a brutal beating' on Kurt Holobaugh

Steven Siler probably doesn’t have anything in particular against Kurt Holobaugh. Holobaugh just may be in the wrong place at the wrong time as far as Siler is concerned.

Siler (21-10 MMA, 3-1 UFC) meets Holobaugh (9-1 MMA, 0-0 UFC) to open up the preliminary card of Saturday’s UFC 159 event, which takes place at HP Pavilion in Newark, N.J. And he’ll have a couple measures of revenge on his mind.

Siler will be trying to get back on the winning track after his November loss to Darren Elkins at UFC 154. And he’s got some added motivation after Ramsey Nijem, a teammate at The Pit Elevated in Utah, was knocked out this past Saturday by Myles Jury.

“I’m definitely ready to get back in the cage,” Siler told MMAjunkie.com Radio (www.mmajunkie.com/radio). “I have this killer instinct right now where I just want to put a hurting on someone, to tell you the truth. I just want to punch this kid in the face a lot, and I’m looking forward to doing it. I’m happy I only have a few more days to wait.”

Siler had a three-fight win streak after coming off Season 14 of “The Ultimate Fighter.” After decision wins over Josh Clopton and Cole Miller, he submitted Joey Gambino this past June.

But against Elkins in November in Montreal, he was outworked and definitely outwrestled by the Indiana native, a former high school state wrestling champ. The 26-year-old Californian said when he got to Canada, something was off.

“I really do think that was the best camp I ever had going into a fight,” Siler said. “When I got up there, a day or two into it, I realized I just did not want to be in Canada. Nothing against Canada, but something changed mentally where I wasn’t able to have friends, family, teammates – no one was there the majority of that week. I wasn’t used to that. It was definitely different to be out there alone.”

After training plenty of judo for Jimy Hettes, Hettes had to pull out and Siler was dealt a new card in Holobaugh a little more than a month ago.

He knew after the Elkins fight that wrestling was an area he needed to focus on. But it’s not as if he was stressed out about it.

“I definitely knew I needed to get my wrestling a little bit better,” Siler said. “It’s something I already knew. Everyone has off days, and that happened to be my off day. It sucked that it happened on that UFC card against a great opponent like Darren Elkins, but it had to happen eventually.

“I don’t think my wrestling is as bad as it showed in the last fight. I just want to put a brutal beating on someone and make people start talking again.”

That brutal beating he wants to dish out on Holobaugh has a lot to do with needing to get back on the winning track, of course. But seeing Ramsey stopped on Saturday gave him one more piece of motivation.

“Watching that fight with Jury and Ramsey, it definitely made me want to fight harder,” he said. “As soon as Ramsey went out, it made me not want to go after Jury, but put a beating on somebody to make up for that fight.”

For more on UFC 159, stay tuned to the UFC Rumors section of the site.

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