Kahuku alum Dan Ige lost a unanimous decision to Diego Lopes in a fight that wasn’t officially made until Saturday afternoon at UFC 303 at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas.
Accepting the bout on a few hours notice, Ige, who lives and trains in Las Vegas, replaced Brian Ortega in a 165-pound catchweight fight after Ortega fell ill following Friday’s weigh-ins.
Ige came to the arena and weighed in at 164.5 pounds while Lopes had to weigh in again and was 161 pounds. Ige had cleared his pre-fight medical obligations in part because he had already done it preparing for a bout on July 20 against Chepe Mariscal.
Lopes, who said he didn’t know he would be fighting Ige until 4 p.m. local time in Las Vegas, won the first two rounds before Ige put a scare into Lopes in the third.
Ige landed clean power shots standing and spent the final two minutes on top of Lopes on the mat, landing a series of significant strikes with his left hand as Lopes survived the final bell.
“It doesn’t matter. Eight weeks, six weeks, four weeks, four hours. It doesn’t matter,” Ige said in a postfight interview. “This is what I live for.”