Glover Teixeira hopes to have a clean fight at UFC on FOX 26.

The Brazilian veteran was originally scheduled to face Misha Cirkunov in October, but his hands weren’t 100 percent recovered from a surgery he underwent following his fifth-round defeat to Alexander Gustafsson in May. The light heavyweight showdown was moved to UFC Winnipeg on Dec. 16, and that gave Teixeira more time to heal and prepare.

“My hand is great now, and I’m well prepared,” Teixeira told MMA Fighting. "Cirkunov is a tough athlete, for sure, but I’m a top five of the division, so I will always fight tough athletes. I will always fight tough fights, and that’s what I need in order to get to the belt.”

Cirkunov is also coming off a stoppage loss, a quick 28-second knockout defeat to light heavyweight contender Volkan Oezdemir in May, and the Brazilian expects his opponent to go for takedowns as soon as he tastes his power.

"I’m getting ready for every aspect,” Teixeira said. "He might try to risk trading punches with me, but when my hand lands, he will try to take me down, for sure. That’s how he finishes his fights. He has a good chin, a good left hand, but I trained with some southpaws, some good southpaw boxers, so I’m ready for this. But I expect him to ty to take me down."

One of the things Teixeira says he adjusted after losing to Gustafsson was adapting his aggressive style in a way that he avoids getting poked in the eye. Teixeira only lost four of his past 28 fights, and was poked in the eye badly in two of those defeats, against Gustafsson and Jon Jones — although he never blamed the eye pokes for his losses.

"The lessons of the Gustafsson fight,” he said, "the first one is to get an eye-patch so I don’t get poked in the eye like I am all the time, getting screwed every time. … I don’t know how, but thank God I have no eye problems. It’s Jon Jones (poking me in the eye) five times. … My fighting style is to move forward all the time and these guys want to run and put their hands forward. I don’t believe it’s on purpose, but it’s my style to move forward and they end up putting their hands open, and ends up hitting the eye."

"But what I’ve learned is to stay calm. This is not boxing,” he continued. "I always go for the knockout, I always go for the finish, to put on a beautiful fight, a quick win to excite the fans, but unfortunately it’s hard to do this in this sport because the guys leave their hands open and there’s no punishment for no one. I have to adjust my game, study my opponents, how to get in and catch them soon, and that’s what I did. I know they will do that, leave their hands open in my face, so I have to remain calm and catch them in the perfect time."

Teixeira vows to be more calm inside the Octagon, but won’t change one thing that made him a fan-favorite: he wants an impressive finish in Canada.

"I see myself scoring a beautiful knockout in Winnipeg to get back to the top,” said the Brazilian, who only went the distance twice in eight UFC wins. "I’m already at the top, I lost to the No. 2 in the world. I have to get to the winning track and get closer to the belt. That’s why I need the knockout in this fight."

With UFC light heavyweight titleholder Daniel Cormier scheduled to defend his crown against Volkan Oezdemir a UFC 220 on Jan. 20, Teixeira wonders how many wins he needs in order to get another shot at the 205-pound championship.

"I honestly don’t know how far I am from the belt,” Teixeira said. "I saw that Gustafsson injured his shoulder, and I think Gustafsson should have been the one fighting for the belt, even before Jon Jones failed a drug test again. Now that Jon Jones is out they put this other guy, Oezdemir."

"I always wanted to fight Cormier,” he added. "He has this fighting style, he’s a warrior, I always wanted to fight someone like him, a guy like ‘Rampage,’ someone who moves forward and fights. I think Cormier and I would be a great fight. I will do everything I can to make it happen."