David Branch has assured everyone who will be tuning in on Saturday night that the best is still yet to come

Despite Branch being known for a conservative style over a gung-ho, high-energy approach, the former World Series of Fighting two-weight world champion insists that there is a reason behind this:

“I look at it like this. If there’s more for me at the top, I’ve always reserved myself to a certain point in my career,” Branch said on Monday’s episode of The MMA Hour. “I’ve had 25 fights, I’m going on 11 years fighting MMA. I feel like a lot of fighters, they put so much of themselves in there and take so much punishment earlier on in their careers that when they get to the championship level or their championship run where it’s time to really start making that bread, their bodies can’t take it no more, their brain can’t take it no more, they’ve got a bunch of scar tissue.

“I haven’t suffered that kind of damage because I’ve always been careful. Now that I’m on this championship run, now I can go in there and be a f*cking fool. I’m gonna have fun on Saturday because I’ve been able to preserve myself all this time for 24 fights leading up to this one. So now, because this one means something and this is a money fight and this means more money, now I can go out there and act a goddam fool.”

Branch is hoping that the biggest fight of his UFC career to date will be against an opponent an “A-game” Luke Rockhold:

“I don’t want to hear, ‘I took too much of this,’ or ‘it wasn’t enough of this,’ or ‘I didn’t take him serious, I didn’t do this.’ I’m letting him know that I’m a dangerous motherf*cker to get in there with, so please take me serious and when you go in there give me your A-game. I want you to fight the best and the hardest that you can fight. I want you to kick at me and punch at me the hardest that you can. I want you to pull your A-game out in wrestling, submissions, whatever you’ve got to do, I want you to do the best of it and do the most of it because I don’t want to hear no excuses.”