Daniel Rodriguez says UFC 279 will go down as the most hectic and strange fight week in his career.
Rodriguez was supposed to face Kevin Holland at a 180lbs catchweight bout, which is a fight that was years in the making. However, after Khamzat Chimaev missed weight badly, the UFC scrambled to change opponents, and right away the promotion wanted to make Chimaev-Holland. Although it was a big fight, Rodriguez says Holland messaged him to say he won’t take the fight unless the UFC takes care of him.
“This is definitely a first being a part of the crazy week and changing opponents. Dana called it a shitshow which is 100% what it was,” Rodriguez said to BJPENN.com. “So, after I weighed-in, I actually got a DM on Instagram from Kevin Holland and he was telling me that Khamzat was overweight and he said they wanted him to fight Chimaev. We were talking back-and-forth and I told him if he’s getting paid I’m not going to be mad if he takes it but he wanted to make sure I was taken care of or he wasn’t going to take the fight, so mad respect to Holland.”
Once the UFC made Chimaev vs. Holland and Tony Ferguson vs. Nate Diaz, the plan was for Rodriguez to fight Li Jingliang. According to ‘D-Rod’ he agreed to the matchup with Jingliang right away and was glad the Chinese fighter took the scrap even though there was a weight discrepancy.
“I agreed right away to face Li, for a second there I didn’t think I was going to fight. I didn’t have a hard weight cut, I could’ve made 170 but the UFC offered it at a catchweight because of the short notice,” Rodriguez said. “There wasn’t really anything in terms of preparing so I just said ‘f**k it, I’m going to fight on Saturday.’”
With Daniel Rodriguez now fighting Li Jingliang at UFC 279, he says he didn’t have a game plan for the fight. Instead, he just wanted to go in there and fight and when it hit the scorecards, he thought he did enough to get the win.
“It was not the performance I was going for but we had no game plan. I didn’t expect his power, I was caught off guard by how hard he hits and his fight style,” Rodriguez said. “It was a totally different fight than what I was studying for Holland. It was a close fight and I knew all the scorecards would be up in the air. I felt like I won, the first and second rounds were close but I felt like I did enough to beat an amazing fighter and a ranked opponent in Li was good, I’m glad I got the win.”
After the victory, Rodriguez says he wasn’t too banged up and plans to only take a week off. The goal for Rodriguez is to fight one more time this year but is uncertain if the Holland matchup will be next.
“I’ll probably take a week off to let my body heal up and get right back to it. Hopefully, I get another fight in before the year’s end, but I’m not sure who would be next. The Kevin Holland fight is a possibility but I don’t know if it is next because I won and he lost. But, I know that matchup will happen, I feel like if I have to fight that guy. I’d love to fight a ranked opponent next, though,” Rodriguez concluded.
Who would you like to see Daniel Rodriguez fight next?