Fares Ziam was honest in his assessment of where he stands in the UFC lightweight division.

Ziam (17-4 MMA, 7-2 UFC) notched his fifth-straight win less than two weeks ago when he defeated Mike Davis by unanimous decision at UFC Fight Night 250 in Riyadh.

The 27-year-old has shown vast improvements in his all-around game during his winning streak, but still wants to tweak some things before taking on the upper echelon of the division.

“For me, I need maybe one more fight before I go top 15 because I did some mistakes in the Mike Davis fight,” Ziam told MMA Junkie. “I want to be ready for the top 15 because I know when you enter in the top 15, it’s to stay.

“People are high level, so we need to stay in the top 15 to go to the top 10 after the top five, then to take the belt. Maybe I need one more fight, but if the UFC gives me a top-15 guy, I’m ready to fight Grant Dawson or Jalin Turner.”

Upon entering the UFC as a 22-year-old, Ziam’s striking background encouraged many to implement a heavy grappling approach on him, which resulted in him splitting his first four UFC appearances. His quick submission loss to Terrence McKinney in February 2022 was a big wakeup call, and Ziam was able to turn things around to put together the current third-longest active winning streak at lightweight.

However, despite his recent success, Ziam’s coach pointed out similar tendencies that he wants to see fixed.

“My coach called me this morning and said, ‘Did you watch your fight?’ And I said, ‘Yes, one or two times,'” Ziam recounted. “He told me in the last three fights, my opponent took my back, took the mount, and this is not good. In the top 15, if your opponent takes your back or gets mount, it’s going to be hard to escape. So he told me we need to work on that.”

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