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SHANGHAI – Put an interview with Alex Caceres in front of 100 people, and you can be reasonably certain at least half of them will walk away saying, “What a weird dude.”

But maybe the ones you should be focused on are the ones who would say, “Refreshing change of pace for a fighter … I like it.” Plus, ya know what? Caceres is the kind of cat who knows he’s probably a weird dude to some people – and the beauty is, he’s just fine with that.

For Caceres, his life doesn’t revolve around only the sport, even though he tends to be a martial arts purist who loves fighting in the truest sense of the word.

“It’s not all about fighting – sometimes it’s about cooking,” Caceres told MMAjunkie today in China. “But it’s always a battle. It’s always a process of self-discovery, of acquiring knowledge of self, and becoming a better person every single day. Nothing matters but today. Every day, you’re born again, and we just have to take advantage of it.”

On Saturday, Caceres (13-10 MMA, 8-8 UFC) takes on the highly touted Wang Guan (16-1-1 MMA, 0-0 UFC) in a featherweight bout at UFC Fight Night 122. Their fight on the main card takes place at Mercedes-Benz Arena in Shanghai. The entire card streams on UFC Fight Pass.

Caceres is the kind of fighter who marches to the beat of his own drum. When he fought Sergio Pettis at UFC on FOX 10 in Chicago nearly four years ago, his walkout song was well off the beaten path: “One-Trick Pony” by Paul Simon, a seldom remembered Simon album and almost certainly a song that had never been used before for an MMA walkout.

For Caceres, it’s more about having life experiences through reading, through traveling, through the aforementioned cooking, if needs be. And yes, fighting is a big part of it.

“I love fighting,” he said. “It’s not fighting for the UFC, it’s not MMA – I just like fighting people. I don’t get angry when I fight – everybody sees that. I enjoy fighting. Some people call it me being a violent person. I don’t think I’m a violent person – I just enjoy the scrap. I like getting in people’s faces.

“I feel like it’s a process of self-discovery. … I’m really fighting against myself to see where I stand, and hopefully in the future I will have already fought myself so many times that I finally understood myself through the mirror image of other people and I won’t be fighting anymore. I’ll be able to teach people and help people discovery themselves as well through the beauty of martial arts.”

At 29, and with 17 fights already on his UFC resume (eight up, eight down, and a no-contest), Caceres says there’s really no telling what the future holds.

“I’m still very young. I keep getting older, but I just don’t get older in a sense.”

If that’s not existential enough, check out the video above for more from Caceres.

And for more on UFC Fight Night 122, check out the UFC Rumors section of the site.

Filed under: Featured, News, UFC, Videos