Alessio Sakara is preparing for the biggest fight of his career when he takes on Thales Leites at UFC 101 in Philadelphia. Sakara owns an outstanding professional record of 13-7 and is coming off a knock out victory over Joe Vedepo at Ultimate Fight Night 15.

"I know that this fight can change my life, but I don't want to think about this," Sakara told Tatame.com. "Sometimes we, fighters, suffer a lot of pressure and can't fight well. Saturday, March 8, I'll do my job without thinking about the future, but only in the present. I would like to say that I didn't want to fight him because of my respect to the Nova União, which has always opened the doors for me, and I thank the masters, who always respected me and let me train with them, but the UFC is work and they choose. We just have to fight. The training of the Nova União everyone knows that is too good. I think we'll give a good show for the fans."

Sakara mentioned a big change in his training habits and knows he has to put on a good performance in order to show his importance in a stacked UFC middleweight division and to prove to the UFC that he's still relevant. He splits his time training with Paulo Caruso, Luiz Alves, the Nogueira brothers, Pedro Rizzo and Ricardo De La Riva.