Fans of the UFC have become familiar with Hayder Hassan during this season of The Ultimate Fighter and his brother is also a fighter as Mehdi Hassan is a light heavyweight training out of American Top Team.
The pro career of Medhi started in 2009 when he decided to skip amateur fights and immediately turned professional. He would drop two of his first three fights and since those defeats, he has won three of his last four.
Three of his four wins have come by TKO/KO and when you talk to anyone at American Top Team about him, they will talk about the power he has in his hands.
“At the end of the day when people fight me or spar with me, I make you work your ass off until you stop throwing because every time you throw, I am going to eat you up. Everybody ends up taking it running like a bitch and my job is to chase them down and punish them,” Hassan told The MMA Report. “We have wrestling and jiu-jitsu. I can do it all. I take pleasure in chasing people down and punching them in the face. That is my job and that is what I get paid to do — to punish people. For me, it does not matter who you are. I am going to make you shoot. If you fight me first, you are either going to get knocked out fighting me like a man or you are going to get knocked out shooting like a little coward. It’s your choice. You have to look at yourself in the mirror.”
Hayder showed his power during The Ultimate Fighter 21 when he scored a knockout in 48 seconds. Mehdi has shown the same power throughout his career as well and he explained the fighting style they both have.
“There are martial artist and then there are killers. My brother and I are killers. We come out to bang and that is what I practice. I practice breaking people down and try to beat people up as quickly as possible. Obviously, you just can not expect that to just happen in the fight, you have to train for that.”
The Hassan brothers have proven in the past the will back up anything they say. They are extremely confident in their abilities and they like to say they shine under pressure.
“That is the name of the game. You have to talk it and back it up,” Mehdi said. “That is the thing with my brother. People do not know him yet and they not know what they are seeing. He is talking it up and he is not talking it up to go out there and wrestling. He is talking it up and 100 percent confident in what he believes. He is going to come out banging. It does not matter if you hurt him or not. He is going to come out and pressure. We are tough guys and you have to kill us. Your only chance to stop us is kill us. That is the name of the game. You have to talk it up. For us when we talk, it just makes us fight even harder. It makes us step up to the plate and we shine under pressure.”
Hassan was scheduled to fight earlier this week in Jordan, but he had to pull out of the fight with an injury. He is currently recovering from that injury and is expected to return in August.