Cameron Saaiman the underdog in Fight Night bout this weekend – bookies

South African MMA star Cameron Saaiman will step back into the octagon against unbeaten American bantamweight Payton Talbott on Sunday morning (SA time).

Saaiman and Talbott will clash on the UFC Fight Night: Ribas v Namajunas fight card at the UFC Apex centre in Enterprise, Nevada on Saturday, 23 March (local time).

Like Saaiman, Talbott is also a former Dana White’s Contender Series contestant.

Saaiman, 23, was beaten in his most recent UFC fight when he lost via unanimous decision against Christian Rodriguez in October 2023.

The Pretoria-native’s fight record now stands at 9-1.

Talbott, meanwhile, boasts a perfect 7-0 record.

The South African website has confirmed that SuperSport will commence broadcasting the main card fights from 04:00 on Sunday.

It appears that there are six fights scheduled for the main card, with the Saaiman-Talbott bout the third of those to take place.

A look at the latest Hollywoodbets odds on the fight shows that Talbott is a 61/100 favourite, with Saaiman on offer at 23/20.

As reported by The South African website, Saaiman’s ‘MSP’ nickname stands for “Most Savage Player” and was given to him by his coach.

Saaiman, who represents Team CIT MMA, will be looking to follow in the footsteps of compatriot and close friend, Dricus du Plessis, who in January 2024 became the new UFC middleweight title holder.

Du Plessis beat American opponent Sean Strickland on points over five rounds to become South Africa’s first ever UFC champion.

Cameron Saaiman hailed as ‘the future’

Saaiman has been hailed as the future of the sport by none other than UFC CEO and president Dana White.

Saaiman got into the sport through a chance happening that saw his father working for Carnival City when he brought his son along for some EFC fight nights.

The cage-fighting bug bit instantly.

“My father actually worked for Carnival City, which hosted the EFC events – the local events here in South Africa,” Cameron Saaiman told ESPN.

“He was a project manager there and I actually just happened to be there with him at his work and that’s basically how I fell in love with the sport. I watched a few fights and then I went to my father and told him: ‘I want to do this. This is really cool.’

“As a 12-year-old kid, you can get tired of many sports. I did skateboarding for about a week and a half before stopping that, so I really jumped around doing a lot of sports, but this one really stuck.”

Saaiman says that being rated highly by the boss serves to motivate him to do well in the UFC.

“It’s an absolute compliment and it’s an honour to be called that by the boss man himself.

“If anything, I think it added a lot of motivation. Since I started as a professional, I turned pro when I was 18 and there was a lot of criticism because of that and I had to prove myself every single time.

CAMERON SAAIMAN’S FIGHT RECORD TO DATE

Result	Record	Opponent	Method
Loss	9-1	Christian Rodriguez	Decision (unanimous)
Win	9-0	Terrence Mitchell	TKO (punches)
Win	8-0	Leomana Martinez	Decision (majority)
Win	7-0	Steven Koslow	TKO (knees and punches)
Win	6-0	Josh Wang-Kim	KO (punch)
Win	5-0	Sindile Manengela	Decision (unanimous)
Win	4-0	Roevan De Beer	TKO (punches)
Win	3-0	Billy Oosthuizen	Submission (rear-naked choke)
Win	2-0	Zwelibanzi Ngema	TKO (punches)
Win	1-0	Corne Blom	TKO (punches)