After Recent Successful Stretch, Alex Caceres Believes He Deserves Ranked Foes

Don’t look now, but Alex Caceres has quietly won seven of his last eight appearances in the Ultimate Fighting Championship.

“Bruce Leeroy” put on a show at UFC on ESPN 46, earning “Fight of the Night” honors for his unanimous decision triumph over Daniel Pineda in Saturday’s co-main event at the UFC Apex in Las Vegas.

“I felt it was a good performance. I felt I was dominant, especially in the first and third rounds,” Caceres said at the post-fight press conference. “The second round he had a pretty good grappling exchange on me. Other than that I felt I showed a lot of heart, showed a lot of skill. It was a fun fight.”

Caceres appeared to be on the verge of finishing his opponent with some brutal body work in the third frame, but Pineda displayed his toughness in making it to the final horn. Caceres commended his opponent for his tenacity.

“I hit him in the body pretty hard. I caved him down with leg kicks. I almost shook him a whole bunch of times with the hands and he kept coming back,” Caceres said. “The referee kept warning him ‘the fight’s gonna end.’ But he showed a lot of heart and kept stepping forward. I totally respect that.”

Caceres, who was a cast member on Season 12 of “The Ultimate Fighter” and made his Octagon debut in 2011, is in the midst of the best stretch of his professional career at 34 years old. Caceres mentioned a fight against Giga Chikadze as one potential option, but he also is eyeing a title bout against Yair Rodriguez — which would require the Mexican star to upset Alexander Volkanovski at UFC 290. Caceres dropped a split decision to Rodriguez in the UFC Fight Night 92 main event on Aug 6, 2016.

“I know we had that Giga fight fall through a couple times. That’s a fight that’s always fun to have. He’s karate guy so it would be fun to fight him,” Caceres said. “I want Yair Rodriguez to win the title so once I climb those rankings so I get to take it from him. So that’s always a fun fight to look forward to. I did have a five-round fight with him down in Utah, he edged me via split decision. It was very close — too close for me to let it go.”

Regardless of what the future holds, Caceres believes it’s time for him to start facing opposition with a number beside their name.

“I think fighting ranked opponents from here on out would be the fastest route to get [to a title shot] for sure. I dont know how many fights lie ahead of me. I am 7-1 out of my last eight outings, that’s got to count for something,” he said. “There’s people that get rankings out of two to three fights, or they’re coming off a loss and one fight and they’re getting rankings. .I think it’s deserving of me to fight some ranked opponents, two or three should put me in contention for the title.”