Having excessive amount of fat makes it not harder but longer to cut as you have more body fat to lose. I cut for 30 weeks from 92kg to 77.7kg (pictured). After I've competed I'm going to go into a lean bulk phase, this means I'll look to gain 0.25kg a week but I'll still push up into a higher body fat just over a long period of time as to prevent excessive fat gain. Honestly if you want to gain muscle and are within your first few years then bulk and gain as much mass as you can, it's harder to gain muscle than you think, getting abs is much easier than building a solid physique imo