Little goes “according to plan” in mixed martial arts, says Cory Sandhagen.
“I feel like the amateur days in MMA really prepare you for the kind of s–t show that this sport can sometimes feel like it is,” the top-flight UFC bantamweight recently said during a phone conversation with The Post, “as far as things just not going to plan for reasons that are kind of no one’s fault.”
Case in point: Sandhagen’s originally scheduled contest against Umar Nurmagomedov fell apart in mid-July after the rising star — a cousin of Hall of Famer Khabib Nurmagomedov — suffered what he referred to as a shoulder injury in training.
As young Nurmagomedov walked out the door, in came Rob Font — who himself similarly lost upcoming opponent Song Yadong — to not just salvage the main event for the UFC’s return to Nashville, Tenn., on Saturday (9 p.m. ET, ESPN) but, in terms of station in the rankings, upgrade the fight.
Not that Sandhagen (16-4, 10 finishes) was dissatisfied with the original matchup, one he assessed as “an exciting fight that I know that people were gonna watch.”
But that’s not the only thing that was to come along with a potential victory over Nurmagomedov, as Sandhagen’s career stood to benefit with a return to the championship picture.
“[The Nurmagomedov fight was] bringing a No. 1 contender spot to me that was offered to me by the UFC if I took the Umar fight,” Sandhagen explains, “because no one else wanted to fight him.”
It’s unclear if those stakes carry over for Sandhagen in this new matchup — even as the fight falling apart was through no fault of his own — but the 31-year-old acknowledged that such decisions always rest with decision-makers like UFC president Dana White.
That said, Sandhagen says that, by and large, “they are very set on having me, if I win, be the next person to fight for the belt.”
Who Sandhagen would even face for the championship, if he can take care of business against Font (20-6, 13 finishes) in their 140-pound catchweight headliner, is a whole other branching story.
Aljamain Sterling, who topped Sandhagen three years ago, will make his fourth 135-pound title defense on Aug. 19 against colorful star Sean O’Malley, but the champ could move up to 145 pounds with another victory as the Long Island native has indicated throughout this year.
The way Sandhagen sees it, a victory this weekend puts him on a collision course with either Sterling, O’Malley, or Sterling teammate and good friend Merab Dvalishvili — who holds the top spot in the UFC rankings but refuses to fight his buddy even for championship glory.
“That’s about as far as I’ve thought about it because I have other fish to fry first,” Sandhagen says.
Font, to extrapolate from the idiom, is quite a seasoned fish.
The 36-year-old Font has, like Sandhagen, been a staple of the upper level of the bantamweight rankings for years and has risen close to the top before suffering setbacks.
“Fighting Rob Font is a different type of challenge because Rob is super seasoned,” Sandhagen said. “And he’s had his ups and downs and his fair share of adversity in the UFC, which I think brings out the best in people.
“So Rob does pose different challenges, but I want to beat Rob just as bad as I wanted to beat Umar. And that’s how I feel about every single person that I face.”
And while Font is a new opponent to which Sandhagen must adjust, the Colorado native believes it is fortuitous that the opponent flipped from Nurmagomedov, more known for his grappling, to Font, who typically keeps the fight standing, and not the other way around.
“I do like that I’m switching from Umar to Font and then not Font to Umar because I am super familiar with fighting this type of person,” Sandhagen explains. “I’ve been doing it for a really long time now. It’s a style that I feel like I have a lot of really good and familiar answers with. So the matchup itself, as far as Rob goes as martial arts style, [I’m] extremely familiar with and very comfortable fighting that type of person on two weeks’ notice.”
