Rodriguez got his wish, though he probably didn’t expect this much excitement in the build-up to Saturday night’s UFC 279 card in Las Vegas.
Originally coming in on short notice, along with Kevin Holland, for a bout at a catchweight of 180 pounds, the pair of welterweights got thrown into the 24-hour tornado that culminated with Khamzat Chimaev missing weight for his main event against Nate Diaz and the top three bouts being shuffled.
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By Friday afternoon, Diaz was facing Tony Ferguson in the main event, Chimaev got Holland in the co-main, and Rodriguez got matched up with Ferguson’s original foe, Li Jingliang. Now we weren’t in the room when Rodriguez took the fight with Li, but it probably went along the lines of the conversation when he was offered to return against Holland.
“Ultimately, the goal is always to win, and me taking this fight, it’s one for the fans, and I just want to go out there and put on a show and fight the best fighters,” he told me before Friday’s madness. “I would have said yeah to anybody. I’m super excited to go out there and put it all out there.”
