—How is your current condition?
I am fighting at featherweight this time so I didn’t have to lose as much weight as in previous fights, so I feel really good.

—What kind of training are you doing now?
I thought I was able to use my elbows in the fight, and only 1 week ago I was told I couldn’t, which honestly put our camp in some trouble. I am a little puzzled to be quite truthful.

—Do you think people are expecting a fist fight?
To be honest, I really wanted to cut him open and tear him apart with my elbows. A fist fight? Who knows? I think he is going to come at me with his ground game though. After he tries to take me down, he’ll come at me with strikes, then I think it’ll turn into a fight fist that way.

—Did you focus on your elbows a lot in training?
That’s all I focused on.

—Do you have any special feelings regarding this match, considering it’s an end of year event?
End of year? Well, I’ve never been in an end of year event before so I don’t really have any special feelings, no. I’ve had a lot of experience at big events.I really love to fight in these big events and the reason being that no weirdos can enter the changing room at these events (LOL). When we fight at Korakuen, we get all these strange people coming in with their “greetings” and it’s a real pain in the ass sometimes. That’s why I love these major events.

—What do you want to show the fans when you fight?
I want to show them that I have changed. Every time I evolve and change. I want to show them a DJ Taiki that they have never seen before because up until now I haven’t been that interesting of a fighter.

—Is this Hint?
I’m not worried about anything. I try not to be too negative about myself, as that is one of my weak points. When I fought in K1, I was too worried about getting my opponent with low kicks and a lot of the time it didn’t come off, so I want to be more flexible when I fight./div>