LAS VEGAS – Cezary Oleksiejczuk met the media Saturday after his win over Cesar Almeida at UFC on ESPN 74.
Oleksiejczuk (17-3 MMA, 1-0 UFC) picked up a unanimous decision win in his UFC debut when he outworked Almeida (7-2 MMA, 3-2 UFC) on the main card at the UFC Apex. Oleksiejczuk swept the scorecards with a trio of 30-27s.
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Oleksiejczuk, from Poland, is the younger brother of longtime UFC fighter Michal Oleksiejczuk, who has made 17 walks to the cage in the promotion over the past nearly eight years. But immediately after his win, Cezary wasn’t thinking about following in big bro’s footsteps. Instead, he came to his post-fight news conference on crutches.
“I feel not good – I have an injury in my knee,” Oleksiejczuk told MMA Junkie. “I’m happy that I got the win in my debut, but I’m only 50/50 happy. This debut was hard for me – he had four fights in the UFC and three wins. But I was encouraged because I had a lot of takedowns and I controlled the fight.
“I injured (my knee) in the second round, I think in the first two minutes. If I tried a takedown or a body lock, my knee felt broken. I couldn’t fake (takedowns) because my knee (wobbled).”
Oleksiejczuk hadn’t gone the distance for a win in nearly three years. He had four straight knockout or TKO wins heading into his UFC debut, including a 36-second KO of Theo Haig in September on DWCS.
Check out Oleksiejczuk’s post-fight news conference in the video above.
This article originally appeared on MMA Junkie: Cezary Oleksiejczuk says knee injury forced wrestling in UFC debut win
