Jalin Turner interested in Rafael Fiziev next: 'Everybody thinks it would be a great fight'
Jalin Turner thinks a fight vs. Rafael Fiziev would be a crowd-pleaser.
Turner (14-8 MMA, 7-5 UFC) boasts a 100 percent finish rate with 10 knockouts – including a Performance of the Night knockout of Bobby Green this past December.
Fiziev (12-2 MMA, 6-2 UFC) is considered one of the best strikers at lightweight, with his two most recent wins being bonus-winning knockouts of Brad Riddell and former champion Rafael dos Anjos.
“I want to run back every fight – I want to fight Dan (Hooker) again, I want to fight (Matuez) Gamrot again, but I would like to fight Rafael Fiziev,” Turner told MMA Junkie Radio. “I feel like that would be a good fight. Everybody’s been asking for that fight. Everybody thinks it would be a great fight and I do, too. It’ll be a good striking battle, but anybody ranked higher. I want to fight one of the OG’s.”
Turner, 29, was on the ascent at 155 pounds after five-straight wins, but now finds himself having lost three of his past four, most recently a TKO defeat to Renato Moicano at UFC 300.
“That’s what I’m trying to figure out right now,” Turner said on getting back to winning ways. “I just want to take some more time off and just light that fire again, and just fine tune everything because honestly, I just feel like another thing that has to do with it too is I’ve reached another caliber of fighters that I’m competing against so I feel like I have to level up in a sense.
“I feel like when I went on that win streak, before that I had my injury, I had a whole year layoff, and I only fought a year then I had another 10-month layoff. So, I had so much time to grow and adapt so I was already ahead of the competition by the time I was going in front of them. So now, I reached a new caliber so I want to continue that. Take that time off, train, get as best as I can, and then come back and start taking the scalps again.”