The Rookies: UFC on ESPN 53

Steven Nguyen refused to take no for an answer.

The three-time Dana White’s Contender Series alum will make his long-sought Ultimate Fighting Championship debut when he collides with Jarno Errens in a UFC on ESPN 53 featherweight prelim this Saturday at the UFC Apex in Las Vegas. A Fortis MMA rep and former Evolution Fighting Championship titleholder, Nguyen enters the cage on the strength of a three-fight winning streak. He has three sub-minute finishes to his credit.

The 30-year-old Nguyen nailed down his spot on the roster in September, when he stopped A.J. Cunningham with second round punches during Week 6 of DWCS. He controlled much of the action with a potent jab. Cunningham inflicted some damage of his own—he split open the bridge of his opponent’s nose—but ran aground at the end of the first round. Nguyen floored him with a devastating left hook-right hook combination and swarmed with punches for a potential finish. The bell saved Cunningham but only prolonged the inevitable. Nguyen stayed patient in the middle stanza, staggered the Law School MMA product with a chopping right hand and let the power punches fly to prompt a standing stoppage 4:06 into Round 2.

“It’s been a very long road for me,” Nguyen said at the post-fight press conference. “It’s been four years, I think, since my first Contender Series fight. I just had to keep going. That’s the main thing. I know there was a lot of pressure coming into this fight. I had to finish this fight. This was my third time around, so I went in there with that mindset: kill or be killed.”

Nguyen now plans to prove he belongs at the sport’s highest level by once again calling upon the perseverance that pushed him to this point.

“I’ve been through so, so much, but I never gave up. I never gave up,” he said. “This has been my dream since I was 15 years old, and I never gave up.”

UFC on ESPN 53 features four other organizational newcomers: flyweights Igor da Silva and Andre Lima, featherweight Luis Pajuelo and women’s bantamweight Dariya Zheleznyakova.

Pajuelo draws a main card assignment opposite Fernando Padilla at 145 pounds. The 29-year-old Peruvian has rattled off five consecutive victories, four of them finishes. Pajuelo booked his ticket to the UFC via Dana White’s Contender Series on Aug. 22, when he cut down Robbie Ring with a knee strike to the body and follow-up punches a little less than four minutes into their encounter. On the other side of the equation, Team Oyama’s Padilla finds himself on the rebound after a unanimous decision defeat to Kyle Nelson at UFC Fight Night 227 in September.

Meanwhile, Zheleznyakova faces a significant hurdle in her first Octagon appearance, as she toes the line against the unbeaten Montserrat Rendon. The former Open Fighting Championship titleholder carries an 8-1 record into her company debut, with five of those eight victories having come by knockout or technical knockout. Zheleznyakova, 28, last competed under the Ares Fighting Championship banner on April 7, when she needed just 87 seconds to put away Marie Loiseau with punches. The 35-year-old Rendon has gone the distance in all six of her bouts as a pro. She operates out of the ECR Fight Center in her native Mexico.

Finally, Lima and da Silva are set to square off with one another in a showdown between undefeated prospects at 125 pounds. A Lucas Martins protégé, Lima has secured five of his seven career wins by knockout or technical knockout. The 25-year-old made his way onto the UFC roster with a three-round unanimous decision over Rickson Thai Zenidim Bueno on Week 10 of Dana White’s Contender Series in October. Da Silva, 20, has finished all eight of his opponents: four by submission and four by knockout or technical knockout. The former Jungle Fight champion earned a UFC contract on Sept. 19, when he buried Jhonata Silva with punches in the second round of their DWCS pairing.