Down but not out.
Stefan “Skyscraper” Struve is a tall order for any heavyweight. At 7’0″ with an 84.5″ reach, the dutchman fighting out of the Blackzillians in Boca Raton Florida literally towers over his opponents. However, if there’s one factor that is the great equalizer for all men, it’s health, and Stephan Struve has had his fair share of problems. After a knockout loss to Mark Hunt in 2013, Stephan Struve knew something had to change, he knew something had to be done about his recurring heart condition.
“Everything kind of fell apart for me after the fight with Stipe [Miocic]. In my opinion, the fight with Mark [Hunt], I lost that one because my heart condition was at its worst at that point and I was pretty sick before the fight. That together just led to my body quitting on me in the fight.”
Stefan Struve suffers from an enlarged heart and bicuspid aortic valve. After a year lay off he was set for his return to the cage against Matt Mitrione at UFC 175, but after blacking out backstage, the fight was called off. Nearly 2 years later, he’s back, and ready to take on the ageing but still very dangerous Antonio Silva.
“To be honest with you guys that was the biggest hurdle I had to overcome in my training. I never really worry about fighting. But in the fight with Alistair Overeem, not so much in the fight with Noguiera because I got going, but also in the fight with Rosholt I had trouble finding my rhythm and I was constantly thinking about ‘should I hit the gas now or should I just wait until the second round? You don’t want to get tired like that fight with Hunt where your body gave up.’ I never really got super tired in that fight because my conditioning is good and we always make sure I’m in tip top shape. But that fight with Hunt, my body just quit on me and I had to hang on for like ten minutes and wasn’t able to do much and he was just battering me, beating me.
“How my body felt that fight was such a scary experience. That was the biggest hurdle to overcome, to be able to hit the gas in the fight and start hunting immediately and that’s exactly what I did this training camp so that makes me feel really good.”
With losses in 3 of his last 4 fights, all the feel good stories in the world won’t get him too far in the UFC. This makes his upcoming bout this Saturday at UFC Fight Night 87 Rotterdam even more important as it could be the make or break of his career. So what’s his team going to do differently? Aggression.
“One of the things my coaches really wanted to see more in this training camp was aggression. I was doing my thing the last couple training camps but when I would have a guy up against the fence or in a bad spot I would take my foot off the pedal and let them get back into the sparring or the fight, whatever you want to call it. And this time they were like, ‘if you get someone up against the cage we want to see you finish it…We want to see more aggression we want to see you be focused on finishing the fight.’ I dropped a ton of guys in sparring and it’s definitely going to pay off this Sunday. It’s going to translate perfectly to the fight in my opinion.”
If Struve could pull off the victory Saturday night, he could be right back in the mix. With the heavyweight picture being pretty much a toss up, a year from now we could be talking about Struve fighting for the title. Stranger things have happened. Catch the full interview below:
