JUSTIN GAETHJE AND Dan Hooker were slated to fight in a highly anticipated five-round co-main event at UFC 313 on Saturday. Hooker suffered a hand injury just two weeks ago and, as a result, the UFC found itself in familiar territory.
UFC 313 will mark the fifth time since 2023 that a pay-per-view has lost its main or co-main event less than 21 days before the event. Many UFC Fight Night cards have also undergone late facelifts as well.
As they say: The show must go on. In the case of UFC 313, crowd-pleasing striker Rafael Fiziev stepped up after a 532-day absence to replace Hooker on 10 days' notice and will face Gaethje in a rematch of their thrilling 2023 showdown, which Gaethje won by majority decision. This time, the stakes for Gaethje have changed considerably.
"The Highlight" is looking to bounce back from a knockout loss to Max Holloway at UFC 300 and climb back into title contention. A win against the surging Hooker, the UFC's No. 6-ranked lightweight who is on a three-fight winning streak, would have gotten the third-ranked Gaethje closer to a title fight. Instead, he'll face the No. 11 Fiziev, who is coming off two straight losses. Gaethje's reward for winning isn't quite what he originally had hoped.
"I hope [to get a title shot with a win], but I have no idea," Gaethje told reporters Wednesday. "I have to go in there and I have to win; that's first and foremost. I'm always exciting, the most consistent guy that's stepped in there. I think the way that I win and how my fights usually go, I think I'll definitely be in consideration for it."
While fans are almost guaranteed an exciting fight between Gaethje and Fiziev, what does Gaethje get out of it? Is the risk of accepting a short-notice fight really worth the reward?
"I'm willing and ready to fight anybody, and that means that I have to take the business part out because I feel like I have to take anything and everything offered to me," Gaethje told ESPN. "As soon as Dan Hooker pulled out, I told my team that I didn't want to be the one to decide whether I'd fight or not. I needed them to decide that for me."
IT'S TYPICAL FOR fighters to want to fight, and many seemingly put themselves at a disadvantage by stepping up on short notice to save fight cards. But because prizefighting is also a business, a fighter's management and coaching team can assist with balancing the risk vs. the reward.
For Gaethje, the decision to stay on the card was pretty simple. He'd be facing a familiar opponent that he had previously beaten. It also helped that Fiziev's fighting style is similar to Hooker's. "I've been training for Hooker, so I wanted to stick with fighting another striker," said Gaethje. "I've been training for the last 12 weeks for a striker and wanted to stay as close to that style on fight night as possible."
While Gaethje's decision was made easier by having had a full training camp, Fiziev stepping in was slightly more complicated.
The Kill Cliff FC fighter has been sidelined since September 2023 with a knee injury. He told ESPN he has been ready to fight since last September, but the UFC hadn't found an opportunity for him to return. Once Hooker fell out of the fight, Fiziev saw an opening to step up. He wouldn't have a full camp, but he'd be facing a familiar foe. The reward for beating a top-three fighter far outweighed the risk.
"It was like a miracle for me to get this fight," Fiziev told ESPN.
Fiziev wasn't certain he'd get an opponent of Gaethje's caliber after losing his past two fights. However, with the UFC in a bind, he saw an opportunity. "I'm always ready to fight another striker," Fiziev said. "I can fight tomorrow against a striker if they want me to. But I'll tell you something: If the fight was against a wrestler, I would have needed a longer camp to prepare."
And therein lies part of the dilemma for fighters offered a short-notice fight. They must make a tactical decision before agreeing on an opponent. When light heavyweight champion Alex Pereira stepped up on short notice to rescue UFC 303 last June after Conor McGregor dropped out of the scheduled main event because of injury, he was matched with fellow striker Jiří Procházka rather than a fighter with a strong grappling background. (Pereira will face such an opponent, Magomed Ankalaev, in Saturday's main event -- after a full training camp.)
However, the fighter stepping in doesn't necessarily get that same consideration from the matchmakers.
The UFC's No. 1 pound-for-pound fighter, Islam Makhachev, has defended his lightweight title against short-notice opponents twice in the last year and a half. Both times, his well-rounded fighting style gave his replacement opponents a lot to prepare for in very little time. At UFC 294 in October 2023, Makhachev scored a first-round knockout of then-featherweight champion Alexander Volkanovski, who stepped in on 10 days' notice after Charles Oliveira pulled out with an injury. In January, Makhachev submitted Renato Moicano in the first round after Moicano was moved from the undercard into the main event the day before the event when Arman Tsarukyan was forced to withdraw with an injury. Neither Volkanovski nor Moicano was able to properly prepare for Makhachev, and both were finished in under five minutes.
"You don't want to be judged by the outcome," King Green told ESPN. He has seen his fair share of short-notice fights, with some successes and some failures. He, too, stepped up to face Makhachev back in 2022, prior to the Russian becoming champion. Green, who had gone three rounds to win a fight earlier that same month, had nine days to prepare for Makhachev and lost by first-round stoppage.
"I had to deal with people telling me that Islam owned me," Green remembered. "They didn't care that I only had nine days to fight and I had just fought less than two weeks before that. I really didn't have time to prepare for Islam, but I still ended up being judged for my performance."
But do you know what the best cure for a bruised ego is? A payday.
"Am I weighing the risk versus the reward? Maybe. But it doesn't matter because the real question is, 'Can I beat this man in a fight?' Yeah, I think I can. Let's do it." Michael Bisping
For Green, the decision to take the Makhachev fight was not entirely about winning vs. losing. In MMA, where fans are far more forgiving of losses than in boxing, winning is important, but depositing another check is paramount.
"I'm here to feed my family," said Green. "Legacy and all that other stuff is more important to the fans than me. What's important for me is to take care of the bills. If they are going to pay me and I'm ready, I'm going to fight."
Green's most recent short-notice fight also ended with an unfavorable result. In December 2023, Jalin Turner stepped in for Hooker on a week's notice and knocked out Green in the first round. With consecutive short-notice fights not going his way, does Green regret accepting either fight?
"This is an interesting business," he said. "There are so many fighters who think they can turn down fights and end up being moved out of the way for someone willing to step up. Now you lost your opportunity to make money. You can't be greedy and play hardball with the UFC because you'll cut yourself out for someone willing to fight. I've been around the business long enough to understand how things work here."
Dan Ige and Diego Lopes fight all three rounds in the co-main event of UFC 303.
ONE FIGHTER WHO has ingratiated himself with the UFC by stepping up when the company needed him is Dan Ige.
Ige stepped in on four hours' notice to face Diego Lopes in the UFC 303 co-main event. Although he lost a unanimous decision in a spirited battle, Ige won over the fans with his performance. However, Ige's reward for rescuing the event wasn't what he was hoping for.
Ige was targeting a fight with featherweight contender Yair Rodriguez on the lauded Noche UFC card at Sphere in Las Vegas for his next fight. Unfortunately, Rodriguez wasn't available to compete, so Ige settled for a fight in Abu Dhabi in October at UFC 308 against the unbeaten but lower-profile Lerone Murphy, who defeated him by decision.
"I didn't take it personally," Ige told ESPN. "People said that I deserved better, but I saw it as a good opportunity to take out someone who was highly touted and on the come up. I didn't take it as any form of disrespect."
Although Ige lost, what was more important to him was that the swift negotiation to fight Lopes netted him a new lucrative UFC contract. The fight with Murphy was the first under his new deal.
"The new contract benefitted me very well," he said. "My win and show money in the Lopes fight were guaranteed and my new contract made me one of the highest-paid fighters in the featherweight division. So, from a business standpoint, the risk was more than worth it."
There was also the reality that Ige was far from title contention and a loss wouldn't necessarily affect his ranking.
"I'm a realist," he said. "My record isn't perfect, so what's another win or loss going to do to me? MMA fans are far more forgiving than in boxing. They remember how you performed. I'm never discouraged by a loss because I know I'm always a few good wins away from being in the title picture."
Perhaps the biggest misconception when fighters decline to step in on short notice is that it always has to do with fear of losing. Sometimes, it's a concern over not having enough time to make weight.
"A good majority of fighters are walking around 20 pounds above their weight class," said Ige. "A lot of anxiety stems from being able to cut weight on short notice and still be able to perform at a high level. We're not afraid to lose. We're afraid of not being properly prepared."
For the most part, the fighter stepping in on short notice ends up taking a loss. Moicano, Volkanovski, Jorge Masvidal (against Kamaru Usman at UFC 251), Al Iaquinta (against Khabib Nurmagomedov at UFC 223) and Anderson Silva (against Daniel Cormier at UFC 200) all failed in their attempts to pull off the upset in high-profile fights after filling in without a full camp. Interestingly enough, though, Gaethje enters his fight with Fiziev as the betting underdog (+130 per ESPN BET) despite having a full training camp to prepare for an opponent he beat once before.
But at least two short-notice fill-in fighters have proven that taking a chance and betting on themselves can yield a life-changing reward.
Nate Diaz stepped up to replace an injured Rafael dos Anjos on less than two weeks' notice to face Conor McGregor at UFC 196 in 2016. Diaz shocked the world by submitting McGregor in the second round. The win launched both his popularity and his bank account into another stratosphere.
The other fighter to pull off the feat was Michael Bisping, who filled in on 17 days' notice for an injured Chris Weidman to face then-middleweight champion Luke Rockhold at UFC 199, also in 2016. Although he was a massive betting underdog, Bisping pulled off the upset by knocking Rockhold out in the first round to become middleweight champion.
"What making that decision came down to was more than having a full training camp," Bisping told ESPN. "It's about a lifetime of training and having to decide if you are as good as you think you are when the opportunity comes. I had been preparing for that moment my entire life, and the opportunity may never come around again. Of course, we do it for the money but deep down inside we do it because we are fighters and we believe we can beat anyone on any given night.
"Am I weighing the risk versus the reward? Maybe. But it doesn't matter because the real question is, 'Can I beat this man in a fight?' Yeah, I think I can. Let's do it."