Exclusive: Josh Fremd confident going into fight against Jamie Pickett at UFC Vegas 78 - "Sedriques Dumas, just more seasoned" 

UFC middleweight Josh Fremd has compared his upcoming opponent Jamie Pickett to Sedriques Dumas, who made his UFC debut against Fremd earlier this year.

Fremd recently sat down for an exclusive interview with James Lynch for Sportskeeda MMA. During the chat, the middleweight fighter discussed various topics like his training camp for the upcoming fight and his favorite pastime activities.

At one point during the interview, the 29-year-old gave a preview of his fight against Pickett and called him a "more seasoned" version of his previous opponent Dumas:

"I'm looking at it like Sedriques Dumas, just more seasoned. He's [Jamie Pickett] the same type of fighter, same skillset. So, I'm ready to go in and prove that I have the better skillset all around."

Check out Josh Fremd's comments from the 1:35 mark below:

Sedriques Dumas built a 6-0 record in professional MMA before making an appearance on 'Dana White's Contender Series' in August 2022. The 27-year-old went up against Matej Penaz and defeated him with a guillotine choke just seconds into the fight. The performance earned Dumas a UFC contract.

In his UFC debut, 'The Reaper' locked horns with Josh Fremd at UFC Fight Night 221 in March 2023. Fremd, who had failed to secure a win in his two UFC outings, turned things around and defeated Dumas with a guillotine choke in the second round. With the victory, Fremd extended his MMA record to 10-4.

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Josh Fremd speaks on the controversy surrounding Jamie Pickett vs. Bo Nickal

In his fourth UFC outing, Josh Fremd will go toe-to-toe against Jamie Pickett at UFC Vegas 78. The event will take place on August 12 at the UFC Apex facility in Enterprise, Nevada. The card will be headlined by a welterweight scrap between Vicente Luque and former UFC champion Rafael dos Anjos.

In his last fight, Pickett faced Bo Nickal and lost via submission in the first round. But 'The Nightwolf' later claimed that it was an illegal knee to the groin from Nickal that left him compromised and resulted in the loss.

In the same interview with Sportskeeda MMA, Fremd weighed in on the controversy:

"[The knee] might have hit him. It might have hit his leg and slid up. I don't really put too much stock into it. It's Bo Nickal, he was gonna get the takedown eventually, with or without the n*t shot." [from 2:06 onwards]