At this point, you have to love Vanderaa’s attitude, because there’s no BS in his DNA.
“There’s a lot of that somewhere,” he laughs. “Just not right now.”
That’s okay, we’ll take what we can get and, for the moment, enjoy the fact that the heavyweight division has some of the best prospects in the sport, from Chris Daukaus and Tom Aspinall, to Vanderaa and Alexandr Romanov.
“I think a lot of people are sleeping on the heavyweight division,” said Vanderaa, who has high praise for fighters like Ciryl Gane, Jairzinho Rozenstruik, Tanner Boser and Josh Parisian.
But…and there’s always a but with Vanderaa, he has his own take on why the heavyweights aren’t getting the respect he thinks they deserve.
“I think a lot of people are sleeping on some of the heavyweights because aesthetically and visually, we are not the most appealing group of people,” he deadpanned. “People watch the heavyweights for the instant knockouts, but when you get fighters that are able to grapple or strike at a higher level, you take away that one-strike knockout possibility and now you have to bring something to the table. Now if you’re just looking fat, I kind of fit that mold. I’m not in the best of shape visually. I don’t have the back obliques, the 52 abs, and people want to see that from fighters. If you don’t have that, the mystique and the scariness kind of fades. Then you look at Overeem, Francis (Ngannou), and you’re like, ‘Damn, he’s scary.’ There’s a mystique to these gentlemen.”
Luckily for Vanderaa, who vows to have a six-pack one day, abs never won a prizefight.
Talent, grit and determination have, though, and he’s got plenty of those attributes. Just watch him on Saturday night for proof.