Vicente
Luque believes he has the skills to compensate for his size
disadvantage at middleweight.
Luque made his middleweight debut against Kelvin
Gastelum at UFC 327
earlier this month. “The Silent Assassin” forced Gastelum to tap
with an anaconda choke in the opening round. While Luque fought at
welterweight for most of his career, he plans to stick around at
middleweight going forward.
Luque (24-12) admits that he is unlikely to be among the strongest
guys at 185 pounds. However, Luque believes he has the technique to
compensate for the difference in strength with other middleweights.
Luque has also had the experience of training with elite
middleweights at
Kill Cliff FC like Reinier
de Ridder, Gregory
Rodrigues, and Impa
Kasanganay. Having trained with middleweights while being a
welterweight, Luque doesn’t think he will have issues sticking
around at 185 pounds now.
Compensating with Skill and Technique
“I think that I have enough skill and technique to deal with a lot
of those problems,” Luque told MMAjunkie.com. “Obviously, I don’t think that
I’m gonna be one of the strongest guys. I train with so many
middleweights. RDR is one of the guys, in the grappling he is
really strong and powerful. Definitely, he is a guy that
overwhelmed me sometimes with power, but I still, with my skill,
can work through positions… Another guy I train with often, I would
call him the strongest middleweight that I’ve trained with, is
‘Robocop.’… But it’s something that I have become used to. I have
trained with them even when I was a welterweight full-time… I don’t
see myself having problems with that.”