The 19 year old prospect explained why he wants to start moving up the rankings, as well as the origin of his ‘chiwiwis’ catchphrase.
After five fights in the UFC, Raul Rosas Jr. believes he’s ready to start working his way up the 135 pound rankings.
Rosas is just 19 years old and is 4-1 since arriving in the UFC off a Contender Series win in 2022. That’s a lot of activity for a young prospect, but following a smart if not particularly entertaining decision win over the very tough “Mongolian Murderer” Aoriqileng at UFC 306, “El Nino Problema” wants his next opponent to be ranked.
“The thing about me is that I like challenges,” Rosas said in a new interview with Hablemos MMA. “So I want a challenge. I want to test myself, and now I feel very comfortable being in the cage, and I keep getting more comfortable every time I step in there. I feel comfortable fighting a top-15 opponent. Personally, I know I’m ready.”
“But even if I’m not ready, I’ll figure out a way to be ready for that date and opponent. And if I’m ready, which I think I am, I can still get even more ready, so I can do more than just win, but actually finish and impress everyone, but more importantly the UFC so they can keep giving me fights toward the belt. That’s why I asked for somebody ranked.”
Rosas plans on becoming champ and being done with fighting by 25, so he can’t waste any time.
“Either way, if I don’t get someone in the rankings, I want somebody that they tell me ‘If you beat this one we’ll give you a ranked opponent.’”
135 is a killer division and the No. 10 to 15 slots are held by Jose Aldo, Mario Bautista, Kyler Phillips, Jonathan Martinez, Dominick Criz, and Montel Jackson. Does Raul have any preference between those names?
“There’s no one specific right now, all I want is the title,” he said. “I want the title, so whatever fight takes me closer, that’s the fight I want.”
We can’t discuss Raul Rosas Jr. without discussing “Chiwiwis,” his viral catchphrase that emerged following a win over Ricky Turcios back in June. God, has it only been three months? It feels like this chiwiwis thing has been going on forever at this point. It’s made Rosas so popular Dana White claims the youngster crushed everyone else at UFC 306 when it came to social media metrics.
“I have a friend who is like a brother, we are very close and spend a lot of time together,” he said of the chiwiwis origin. “And he says it a lot. But when it really hit me, we were in Otomi [Central Mexico] where there is no cell service. The only thing we could do is talk and play ping pong. And when he beat me he would say ‘Chiwiwis!’ Or when he asked if he should text a girl and I said yes and she answers, we’d go ‘Chiwiwis!’”
“I didn’t plan to say it after the fight,” he said of that fateful moment during UFC Louisville. “This one I won and I won well and I was very content with everything that happened. It just came out and the people liked it.”