Tuco Tokkos Faces Ivan Erslan After First UFC Win

Tuco Tokkos enters his ivan erslan fight this weekend in Las Vegas with a different record and a different outlook. After dropping his first two UFC outings, the 35-year-old light heavyweight got his first win and said it wiped out the imposter syndrome that had followed him into the Octagon.

That victory came last summer in Nashville, when he submitted Junior Tafa late in the second round. Tokkos called it “a great feeling,” and added, “It was a big relief because you always have a bit of imposter syndrome when you get to the UFC, so it’s like you can get rid of it after you get that first ‘dub.’”

Junior Tafa Breakthrough

The Tafa result changed the tone around Tokkos going into this fight. He opened his UFC run with losses to Oumar Sy and Navajo Stirling, so the win did more than stop a skid; it gave him proof that the matchup he wanted could go his way. “When I got the Junior Tafa matchup, I said, ‘Okay, this is a great matchup. I’m gonna go out there and win with confidence.’”

He carried that same confidence into how he talked about his recent stretch. Tokkos said he had been around elite rooms before the Erslan bout, including training with Jiří Procházka and traveling to California to help Khamzat Chimaev before UFC 328. He said that work speeds things up: “These are the best guys in the world and when you’re training with them, hanging with them, it does expedite the growth,”

Tokkos In Las Vegas

Tokkos also pointed to a change that has nothing to do with his hands. He grew his hair out and said, “I messed up my career having a buzz” and “I should have grown the hair out years ago; it’s changed my life…”

Even check-ins became part of the storyline for him. Staff told him, “You might be the best-looking dude on the roster,” and he joked, “Yeah, me and Paulo Costa need to have a chat.” That side note fits the larger picture here: Tokkos is walking into Las Vegas after a first UFC win, not after the two defeats that started his run.

For Erslan, that means facing a fighter who no longer arrives carrying the same uncertainty. Tokkos has the same assignment in front of him, but the result over Tafa gave him something he did not have before — a UFC win in hand, and the confidence that came with it.