Rafael Fiziev makes surprising revelation about what went down before short-notice step-up against Justin Gaethje: "I went and ate 1 kg of ice cream"

Rafael Fiziev recently addressed his upcoming Justin Gaethje rematch at UFC 313 and made a startling revelation about what happened just before he was called up to fight on short notice.

While Dan Hooker was initially booked against Gaethje at UFC 313, the 35-year-old Kiwi was forced to withdraw after suffering a hand injury during training. Soon after, the UFC announced that Fiziev will be replacing Hooker on the card and will rematch 'The Highlight' on short notice.

While many are excited to see Gaethje throwdown with Fiziev again, it appears the fight almost didn't materialize. During a recent interview with Ariel Helwani, 'Ataman' revealed that Gaethje's coach initially declined his offer to replace Hooker and said:

"When I heard [Hooker pulled out] I straight away said, 'I'm ready, let's go'... The next day, they're saying no, they don't want to fight you. No fight, balh, blah, blah. I said, okay, and I went and at 1 kg of ice cream. The next morning, they come and say, pack your bag... I don't want to hurt anybody, but I hear his coach say, we don't want this fight, but Justin says yes for everybody, you know."

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Rafael Fiziev thanks Justin Gaethje for taking him on at UFC 313

In the same interview, Rafael Fiziev expressed gratitude toward Justin Gaethje for fighting him at UFC 313 and claimed he'd like to shake his opponent's hand for giving him the opportunity to avenge his previous loss.

Fiziev first fought Gaethje at UFC 286 in March 2023. After a highly entertaining three-round affair, 'The Highlight' got his hand raised via majority decision. Despite losing the fight, 'Ataman' gained a lot of public stock for his performance, with many eager to see the two run it back.

With the rematch going down this weekend, Gaethje told Ariel Helwani about how grateful he was and said:

"This is stars of the stars in this game. And fight with [Gaethje] for me is like, I want to go and shake the hands of Justin and say, 'Bro, you give me this chance again, man? I'm not deserving of it and you give me this chance'. Yeah, I know the situation, you have full camp, you want to fight, you don't want to pull out from this card. But still... thank you so much."