What does Cameron Saaiman’s nickname MSP stand for

Cameron ‘MSP’ Saaiman is one of the standouts in a new generation of mixed martial artists from South Africa and he has an interesting nickname.

Many in South Africa will be familiar with the text abbreviation MSP for a variety of reasons.

It isn’t what you might think it is though.

Why is Cameron Saaiman called MSP?

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With nine wins out of nine in professional MMA and six of those by knockout he lives up to the MSP monniker.

The three letters, which some associate with another popular South African phrase, stands for something a little different if we are to believe the story we’ve been told.

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According to Saaiman, the nickname was given to him by one of his coaches at Team CIT, the MMA gym that also trains Dricus Du Plessis.

The letters MSP allegedly stand for ‘Most Savage Player’ and that is something that he has lived up to.

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Often fighting on the ragged edge of legality, Saaiman is a brutal fighter for a bantamweight and its easy to see why Dana White loves him.

Cameron Saaiman aka ‘The future’

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Saaiman has already been hailed as the future of the sport by none other than Dana White.

He got into the sport through a chance happening that saw his father working for Carnival City.

Saaiman senior brought his son along for some EFC events and he caught the cage fighting bug instantly.

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“My father actually worked for Carnival City, which hosted the EFC events — the local events here in South Africa,” 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.”

The stamp of approval

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, because 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.

“All I’m going to do on Dec. 10 is just prove Boss Dana right. I’m going to prove him right and I’m going to show people that I am indeed the future.”

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