Tim Boetsch celebrated his 34th birthday Wednesday, but the birthday cake is on hold until after the mixed martial arts veteran from Lincolnville faces Brazilian Thales Leites on Saturday night’s UFC 183 main card at the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada.
But once the two world-ranked middleweights arrive at the Octagon, any subsequent wait for cake may be brief — neither fighter expects the battle to last for the full three five-minute rounds.
“I know it’s not going to go the distance,” Boetsch said from Las Vegas, where the pay-per-view portion of the card, which includes his fight, is scheduled to start at 10 p.m. eastern time.
Boetsch, the former four-time wrestling state champion from Camden-Rockport High School, is coming off a second-round knockout of Brad Tavares last August in a homecoming bout as part of UFC Fight Night 47 at the Cross Insurance Center in Bangor.
It was a storybook evening for Boetsch played out before a raucous, supportive crowd, as he rallied from some early trouble to knock down Tavares with a left hand strike and then finish the bout with a short right hand.
“The more I look back on it, it really is the highlight of my career thus far,” said Boetsch, who had lost three of his previous four fights and was in danger of being released from the UFC with a loss to Tavares.
“And it’s going to be a tough one to top just because of how everything went down, having [trainer] Marcus [Davis] there with me and having the support of literally everybody in the room — with the exception of maybe Tavares’ corner people and the three or four people who came to watch him.
“Having 6,000 people screaming for you and chanting and just pumping it up, it was a heck of an experience and one I’m never going to forget.”
The Tavares bout was the first which Boetsch worked with Davis at the Team Irish training facility in Brewer.
Training for the Leites bout — with the winner likely to move back into the top 10 among UFC middleweights — merely picked up where they left off.
“We just kept working on the same formula as the last fight, honing the skills I have to get bigger, stronger, faster and picking up a few technical things here and there,” said the 13th-ranked Boetsch, who has an 18-7 professional MMA record, including 9-6 in the top-level Ultimate Fighting Championship.
“I feel like the ‘Barbarian’ that’s going into the cage Saturday night is probably the best one we’ve ever seen. I’m very excited to get in there and mix it up.”
Boetsch and Leites share at least one common denominator in their MMA backgrounds — each was released from the UFC in 2009 and is working to make the most of his second chance in MMA’s major league.
While Boetsch has been ranked as high as fifth in the middleweight (185-pound) division in 2012, Leites fought for the UFC middleweight crown back in 2009, when he lost a five-round unanimous decision to Anderson Silva — who is headlining the UFC 183 card as he returns from a broken leg that sidelined him for more than a year to take on Nick Diaz.
One fight after that title chance, Leites got his walking papers. But he worked his way back up through the regional circuits and is 4-0 since returning to the UFC in August 2013. The 33-year-old Leites is ranked 11th in the middleweight division.
“Fighting a guy like Thales, he’s a seasoned vet who’s fought for the title so he’s fought the best guys in the world,” Boetsch said. “When you compare our resumes, they’re very similar. He was in the UFC, got cut and had to battle his way back and is making a pretty good run right now.
“He’s also fighting with that same sense of urgency because he knows you have to perform. You have to win if you want to stay here. He’s doing a good job of that. But on Saturday night, we’re two guys who have a goal in mind, and it’s going to make for a heck of a fight.”
A rededication to aggression has been at the heart of both fighters’ recent successes — Boetsch, since he teamed up with Davis, and Leites during his current hot streak. Leites, the Brazilian jiu-jitsu black belt, has won his last seven bouts overall, the last two by knockout, to improve his overall record to 24-4.
Two Bangor UFC vets on undercard
Two bouts on the UFC 183 undercard also will feature fighters coming off victories during the promotion’s stop in Bangor last August.
Two former women’s bantamweight title challengers will square off in the featured undercard bout, as second-ranked Meisha Tate (15-5) will face third-ranked Sara McMann (8-1), with the winner moving closer to a rematch against champion Ronda Rousey.
McMann, who suffered a first-round technical knockout to Rousey last February, bounced back from that defeat with a narrow three-round split decision victory over previously undefeated Lauren Murphy at Fight Night 47 in Bangor.
Tate has won her last two fights since being the first MMA competitor to extend Rousey to the third round of a UFC bout. Rousey scored a third-round submission via armbar in their UFC 168 matchup on Dec. 28, 2013.
Another Bangor UFC alumnus, middleweight Tom “Kong” Watson, returns to the Octagon on Saturday night against Rafael Natal.
Watson (17-7) scored a third-round unanimous decision over “Smilin’” Sam Alvey in what was considered one of the more entertaining bouts on the Bangor card.
The Watson and McMann bouts are among five contests scheduled to be televised live on Fox Sports 1 beginning at 8 p.m. Saturday.
