“His last two fights were very close against really good guys,” said Quarantillo of Swanson who defeated Hakeem Dawodu and lost a Fight of the Night split decision to Andre Fili in his most recent bouts. “So not only am I expecting the best Cub we’ve seen, I know I feel the same way with us both getting older. We don’t know how many fights we got left, and you don’t want to end with a loss. So that’s how I’m looking at it. I’m giving it everything I got. It’s in my hometown, and I know he’s not taking me lightly. I absolutely know that he probably knows he only has one or two fights left, so he’s going to give it everything he has, and I think every fighter wants to end their career with that storybook win, that highlight reel finish.”
Quarantillo, 36, has his share of quality clips on his own highlight reel since joining the roster in 2019, most notably his bonus-winning stoppages of Gabriel Benitez and Alexander Hernandez. Add in a loss to Shane Burgos in 2021 that would have been Fight of the Night on any card not including a Justin Gaethje vs Michael Chandler bout, and he’s put together a solid UFC career thus far. But after a March loss to Youssef Zalal, Quarantillo is seeking to end the year on the right side of the win-loss equation.
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“I don’t even want it to sound like an excuse, but the last fight, we kind of rushed it because my wife was due a couple of weeks after my last fight,” he said. “So going into that last fight, I had a lot on my mind. I didn’t know if she was going to have the baby during fight week. I was in Vegas, and the week before I was in the hospital with her because she was having some issues. And, as you know, the fight game is a very mental game.”
