Mario Bautista is thrilled to be headlining his first UFC card on Saturday.

Bautista is set to take on Vinicius Oliveira in a pivotal fight at bantamweight on Saturday at the UFC Apex. Bautista is coming off a hard-fought decision loss to Umar Nurmagomedov, and after the loss, he wasn’t sure what was going to be next, but was thrilled when it was a main event spot against Oliveira, and heading into the bout, Bautista is a -205 favorite on FanDuel.

“I like the turnaround time,” Bautista said to BJPENN.com. “I wasn’t hurt after my last fight. So I was able to take a few weeks off and get right back into a camp. … They said Vinicius, and they said the main event spot. That is what made it appealing to me, that it was going to be a main event, and to get that opportunity to have a five-round fight.”

Although Bautista is fighting below him in the rankings, at UFC Vegas 113, he doesn’t care. Instead, Bautista is eager for the matchup and doesn’t think the rankings mean that much.

“I don’t think the rankings mean too much,” Bautista said. “If they do, Umar took the fight against me. It’s an exciting fight, too, and it’s the main event, so I was happy with it.”

Mario Bautista expects to finish Vinicius Oliveira at UFC Vegas 113

Bautista knows Oliveira is a dangerous opponent and expects it to be a fun fight. However, he does think he will be able to take advantage of the Brazilian in the later rounds to get a decision win.

“I think this fight is going to be up-and-down everywhere,” Bautista said. “He’s going to come out hot, and I’m going to have to be very mindful of that. He throws from the hip, he’s trying to knock your head off. I don’t think he has a great gas tank, so I think in the later rounds, we will look for the finish and drown him in the later rounds.”

If Bautista gets his hand raised at UFC Vegas 113 on Saturday, he expects to be right back in the title picture at bantamweight.

“It puts me back to where I was before the Umar fight, near that top-five. Especially if I finish this guy, and it’s a main event fight, it puts me in the mix for the top guys and the bigger name guys,” Bautista concluded.

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