Sodiq Yusuff eyes summer return, not ready to start calling out opponents yet

Sodiq Yusuff would love nothing more than to fight, but admits it will be tough in these current circumstances.

With the state of Maryland completely shut down due to COVID-19, the featherweight prospect has only been able to do his own cardio training, which he said wouldn’t give him enough preparation to jump into the octagon for one of the UFC’s upcoming cards.

“I thought I was going to fight towards maybe the end of May to beginning of June, or midway through June. But the way everything kinda ended up, I don’t see that happening,” Yusuff told MMA Junkie. “I know the UFC is planning on starting again May 9 and, if that goes well, depending on how everything falls apart, maybe we could get something going towards the end of June, maybe July.

“Right now I’m in Maryland, so everything is shut off. They still haven’t opened up the gyms yet. They’re slowly opening things in America, I think they’re going to start with Atlanta first but, for now, we don’t have access to training. Everything I’m doing has just been on my own.”

Yusuff recently cracked the featherweight Top 15 with a win over Andre Fili in January as he extended his perfect UFC run to 4-0. He is starting to make some noise in the division, but don’t expect him to start calling out some of the bigger, higher-ranked names just yet.

“My whole career, since amateur fights all the way to now, I’ve never been the guy to pick my opponents,” Yusuff said. “I’ve never picked an opponent ever, but now that I’m in the UFC I get the question all the time, like who do you want to fight next? I am going to work on it, but then I have to go look at everybody that’s ranked higher than me.

“I’m in a tricky position to where I just got into the Top 15. On one hand it’s like I know I don’t want to fight backward but, on the other hand, I don’t really care either way. As long as I’m climbing up the ranks, it’s all good to me. If they give me somebody where I have to fight backward, as long as it’s  kinda helping my position in those rankings, it’s OK with me.”