Dan Ige’s preparation for his last-minute fight against Diego Lopez at UFC 303 reads like a movie script.
Ige was having a massage at his Las Vegas home. His phone was on “do not disturb” mode when his wife informed him that several people were trying to contact him. Ige checked his phone and found a total of 10 missed calls from his mother, who had also received calls from people trying to contact Ige, UFC executives, and MMA manager Ali Abdelaziz.
Abdelaziz, who wasn’t even Ige’s manager, offered to quickly schedule the bout that same day to salvage the co-main event spot at UFC 303, which had been in jeopardy after Brian Ortega withdrew due to a fever. Ige agreed, and a few hours later Abdelaziz confirmed the fight would go ahead.
Ige was already in battle mode, preparing to face Jose Mariscal on July 20. But “Dynamite” accepted the match with just four hours notice, so a team had to be put together to play him at cornerback. Ige’s first call was to Xtreme Couture head coach Eric Nicksick, who was already in attendance at the event and had Roman Dolidze scheduled to play cornerback.
They then tried to contact striking coach James Gifford (known as Gif), to no avail. Next up was PFL featherweight Kai Kamaka III, who agreed to be picked up within 30 minutes without being told why. The last person to call was one of Extreme Couture’s biggest names, Sean Strickland. Ige believed the former middleweight champion was the perfect man to prime him for the occasion.
“Eric’s already there, because he’s going to go after Roman Dolidze,” Ige told MMAjunkie.com. “So I said to Eric, ‘I’m going to fight Diego,’ and he said, ‘Sure.’ I said, ‘Tonight.’ He said, ‘Fuck, sure.’ And Eric said, ‘I’m coming to your house, I’m going to meet Roman at the arena.’ So Eric came over and said, ‘Who do you want?’ So I tried to call Giff. [James Gifford]Giff wouldn’t answer the phone. I called him five times, he didn’t answer, he was asleep. So I said, “Okay, who’s next?” Eric said, “Let’s call Kai.” [Kamaka
III]” He called Kai and said, ‘Kai, come to Silverado Ranch on Las Vegas Boulevard in 30 minutes. I’ll pick you up.’ And he said, ‘Okay, what do you need?’ [Nicksick’s] “Bring me my equipment.” He’s like, “What’s going on?” [Nicksick’s] They’ll hang up the phone with a bang, like, “Let’s talk later.” [Nicksick asked] “Who else would it be?” And they called [Sean] Strickland. I was like, ‘Dude, Strickland is just the right guy for this moment.’ Strickland was out somewhere on his motorcycle, so they called Strickland, and Strickland arrived at T-Mobile. He said, ‘Strickland is at T-Mobile for an hour…Ige is fighting.’ He said, ‘OK…what an awesome guy.’ Strickland showed up, and we all arrived there…this was a complete movie.”
Lopez withstood a ferocious third-round assault from Ige to win by unanimous decision, after which both fighters requested, and Dana White granted, a spot on the UFC 306 card in September.
