A really late change has been made to the UFC 303 co-main occasion.
Brian Ortega was dominated medically unable to compete on Saturday evening after struggling by means of a weight reduce that compelled his combat in opposition to Diego Lopes to maneuver from featherweight to light-weight. Based on the printed, Ortega had a 103 diploma fever and he was pulled from the cardboard.
Now Ortega has been dominated out and Dan Ige will exchange him in opposition to Lopes within the new combat introduced previous to the beginning of the UFC 303 pay-per-view foremost card. The combat takes place at a catchweight of 165 kilos.
It’s a wild flip of occasions, with Ige accepting the chance to combat Lopes on the shortest discover in UFC historical past as a result of he wasn’t even scheduled to compete at UFC 303. Ige dropped a teaser on Twitter that clearly alluded to the combat he accepted in opposition to Lopes.
“So that you wanna be a BMF?” Ige wrote.
With a 3-1 file in his previous 4 fights, Ige is a risk even when he’s taking the combat with no coaching camp or preparation to get able to face one of many quickest rising stars on your entire UFC roster. Most lately, Ige knocked out Andre Fili within the first spherical again in February. He only recently booked a combat in opposition to Chepe Mariscal in July.
Now Ige clashes with Lopes, who comes into the combat off three straight wins — all by end — together with a surprising knockout over Sodiq Yusuff at UFC 300 in April.
Lopes vs. Ige joins the UFC 303 lineup, with the principle occasion nonetheless set as Alex Pereira defends his mild heavyweight title in opposition to Jiri Prochazka.