Cory Sandhagen (14-4, nine finishes) returns for the first time in nearly a year when he headlines Saturday’s UFC Fight Night at UFC Apex in Las Vegas against fellow bantamweight Song Yadong (19-6, 11 finishes). The 30-year-old, who lost a competitive decision to Petr Yan last October for the interim 135-pound title, participated in some Q&A via phone in this week’s Post Fight Interview with Scott Fontana.

Q: It’s been almost a year since you last competed. Did you intend to take this long of a break from competition?
A: Yeah, more or less. I wanted time in between my next fight. I kind of wanted it to be a little bit sooner than September, but it’s all good. I took the time because I felt like I needed to really dial in and focus on a few areas of MMA that I just needed to be more world class in.

Q: What was the best part of the break for you?
A: I’m a real into-this-sport guy. I super enjoy the process, and I gain a lot of enjoyment out of being creative and learning new skills and being able to perform those skills and watching myself feel better, almost like a painter or someone who’s drawing something really nice. I get a lot of fulfillment and a lot of enjoyment out of that, probably more than anywhere else in my life. I don’t really have too many other hobbies. I go hiking just because people tell me that I should go do other things outside of just making myself better. That’s really the enjoyment that I get out of life. That’s kind of all that I do.

Q: Looking back at last year, you had the highlight-reel KO of Frankie Edgar and a pair of competitive five-round decisions that didn’t go your way. Professionally, what’s your main takeaway from 2021?
A: I’m close, but I’m not good enough. I need to be better. That’s the best way that I can say it to myself because it’s the most honest way that, if you want to accomplish this goal in this dream of yours, you need to start getting better at some of these things that you’re not as good at. So it was a lot of just me telling myself, yeah, that was cool or whatever. I know that I didn’t lose any stock or anything last year. I gained some fans and I think I got a lot of respect and stuff, but that stuff isn’t as important to me as me accomplishing the big goal of being champ and staying champ for a while.

Q: In what facet do you feel you’ve made the most progress?
A: My overall understanding of position is a lot better. I have definitely gotten a lot better at a lot of the grappling things, a lot of striking things even more. So it’s been, overall, getting better at everything. I feel like I have the right coaches around me, and they’re all very very [good] coaches.

Q: What was your reaction when Song Yadong’s name was brought to you as your next opponent?
A: I thought that I was gonna get a “Chito” [Marlon Vera] or Merab [Dvalishvili] or [Jose] Aldo, but I didn’t get any of those guys — or [Dominick] Cruz. I thought that it would be one of those guys, I don’t really know what happens behind the scenes to make all of that happen, but it was a bit of a surprise. But Song’s a dangerous guy. He’s athletic. He’s hits hard. He definitely brings a level of danger that is going to bring out my best, which is all that I’m worried about. And as long as I can go out, show that I’m on another level than a lot of these guys, that’s the opportunity that I’m looking for. I know that he’s down in the rankings or whatever, but it doesn’t really [matter] too much.

Q: Do you watch the fights every weekend, especially in your own division?
A: No, not really, honestly. Like I said, my most enjoying and fulfilling part is being creative and hammering away and learning new things. Sometimes I feel like watching fights makes me a little bit less creative, so I actually remove myself from watching guys, or at least certain guys, I just don’t want their mistakes to become my mistakes (laughs). I definitely watched all of Song’s fights a number of times now, so I definitely know what they look like.

Q: You’ve only been fighting at the UFC Apex in Las Vegas or in Abu Dhabi since the pandemic began. Which experience do you prefer?
A: I want to start to fight in front of my family and friends again. That’s the piece that I kind of miss. The Apex can’t facilitate that. But I loved Abu Dhabi. S–t, the hotels and the ambiance there was super fancy and feels really out-of-this-world for a guy like me. So Abu Dhabi was cool. I kind of want to start fighting in arenas where, like I said, I have a bunch of friends that want to come to the things that can’t. So hopefully that’ll be next.

Q: Are you interested in getting in one more fight this year if possible?
A: I’m okay with whatever, man. The reason I took a lot of time off is so that, when I did make a run, I was able to actually be super active, which I know the UFC loves. People really like that too, They like active fighters. It’s easier for the fans to follow when it’s like that. If that’s in the cards, I’ll definitely take that. I’m kind of struggling to come up with a person who I would likely fight after this one. It’s probably going to be a Chito or Merab. I don’t really know what the UFC is going to do, but if that’s in the cards, I would enjoy that.

Q: Do you recall your first experience watching MMA?
A: I used to sit on my couch at my parents’ house when I was a teenager, and I used to watch on [Versus Network] the WEC. I remember it was always on really late — or not really late, but it was on [late] for me, a teenager; it was on at, like, 10 [p.m.] to midnight or whatever. That was kind of like my first experience with anything combat sports-wise, more or less. I did Taekwondo and boxed a little bit. But people fighting in small gloves in a cage, that was my first experience. I remember I would watch every single night that it was on. And then, obviously, I learned about the UFC from that, and so on, so forth. But yeah, I used to just watch them all night, every night when I was a teenager.

Q: Your weight class would have been in the WEC, not in the UFC at the time. Were you on the smaller side weight-wise growing up?
A: I was always a small kid. Honestly, they told me I’d grow up to be, like, 5-foot-4 or something my entire life (laughs). And then I grew a bunch one year, thank God. Yeah, I was always a smaller kid. I was always athletic and mobile, quick and agile and stuff, and I thought that the smaller guys in the WEC, especially at that time like [Urijah] Faber, Cruz, Aldo, [Chad] Mendes, a lot of those guys were super quick and mobile, and I thought that was pretty fascinating.

Q: Typical walkaround weight between fights?
A: I can get up to [163 pounds], but that’s me being kind of fat. Usually I’m, like, 158, 157 or so. I usually fluctuate between ‘56 and ‘58, ‘59.

Q: Typical weight on fight night?
A: I think the last time they weighed me, I was maybe 152 or 153.

Q: Favorite post-weight cut meal?
A: Whatever the UFC tells me is gonna make me perform the best (laughs). They do my meals for me. So pretty much what it is, it’s salmon, chicken, sweet potatoes and rice, and then those four things just interchanged, pretty much, all the way until fight night. Honestly, after weight cuts, I don’t really dig that part either because it’s a ton of feeling full and sluggish and tired, which is, I know, maybe weird for other guys. I don’t even enjoy the piece of refueling because, again, I just don’t go out and eat pizza. I eat a bunch of healthy stuff. I eat massive amounts of it, and it makes me tired pretty much all the way up until a couple hours before I fight.

Q: What’s the coolest technique in combat sports?
A: I’m kind of a fundamental guy, man. I’m creative, but I really like efficiency. Efficiency is super beautiful to me. Anyone that can do something effortlessly, like a simple double-leg or people like Khabib [Nurmagomedov] or [Kamaru] Usman or these really good wrestler guys are really awesome to me. And then I also like aesthetically-pleasing type of movement. I think that movement is also really beautiful. I wouldn’t say that it’s necessarily a technique that I love the most as much as efficiency in movement and then efficiency in attacks and techniques that I think are really awesome and what I strive to be like.