UFC Vegas 109: Christian Leroy Duncan in ‘great position’ after KO
UFC on ESPN 72 winner Christian Leroy Duncan talks to MMA Junkie and other reporters post-fight after his first-round TKO of Eryk Anders in Las Vegas
- Former ASU wrestler Sullivan Cauley will fight for the PFL light heavyweight championship on Aug. 21.
- Cauley, with an 8-1 record, aims to win $500,000 and a title shot against Corey Anderson.
Former Arizona State wrestling standout Sullivan Cauley will fight for the Professional Fighters League (PFL) World Tournament light heavyweight championship in mixed martial arts on Aug. 21 in Hollywood, Florida.
Cauley, 29, is 8-1 in his professional mixed martial arts career and trains in Mesa. He’d been part of Bellator MMA until the company was bought by PFL, and won his first two fights in the PFL World Tournament to get to the final match.
“To win the PFL World Tournament is a pretty big accolade,” Cauley told The Arizona Republic recently. “This tournament is stacked with some serious talent, UFC vets, top-tier Bellator guys.”
If Cauley can defeat the more experienced and older Antonio “Shoe Face” Carlos Jr. of Brazil, he wins $500,000 and becomes the No. 1 contender for the PFL heavyweight title against champion Corey Anderson.
“I’m definitely the best iteration of myself right now,” Cauley said. “Gaining experience from my last couple of fights, beating some tough guys, confidence is at an all-time high.”
Cauley suffered a knee injury that required an ACL reconstruction, and didn’t fight between August 2023 and May of this year to get back to full strength and get back in shape. He said it was a 12-month recovery, but the knee joint is back to 100 percent.
“I wanted to beat that timeline and then realized that I’m human and that really wasn’t going to happen,” Cauley said. “I had to work hard on my physical therapy, had to deal with a lot of pain, a lot of just mental difficulty with having a super weak left leg for a while.”
Cauley, who often goes by his nickname “Sully,” learned during his time away from the sport that as serious as he is about his career, it’s just a career, and that he can still exist as a husband, son and friend. He said that thinking freed him up emotionally.
“I actually appreciate the sport a lot more,” Cauley said. “I’m enjoying competing and fighting more than I ever have.”
Cauley’s longtime training partner has been Ryan Bader, the former two-divsion Bellator world champion who left PFL earlier this year. Bader is set to appear in a movie, “The Smashing Machine,” starring Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, that will be released in early October.
Bader, also a former ASU wrestling star (2002-06) who was a two-time All-American and three-time Pac-10 champion, is to be inducted into the Sun Devil Hall of Fame on Oct. 17 in Tempe.
“MMA is still growing pretty fast,” Cauley said. “It’s a super young sport compared to basically everything else.
“People are becoming a lot more familiar with it, which is good. I like the fact that PFL is still alive and well and they’re putting on world-class-level fights outside of the UFC, because I think a little competition has got to be good for the sport.”
