The UFC has sold Dana White’s Contender Series as the toughest job interview on earth, and they’re not necessarily wrong.
Promising prospects from across the globe gather in Las Vegas to fight in front of UFC CEO Dana White in hopes of winning impressively enough to convince him and his matchmakers to award them a UFC contract. For Spain’s Hecher Sosa, a former WOW bantamweight champion, it was all that plus more.
A weeks before his main event bout against unbeaten Brazilian Mackson Lee at DWCS 82, Sosa flew from his home in Lanzarote, one of Spain’s Canary Islands, to Las Vegas, leaving behind his father, who had been battling cancer. He kissed him goodbye, knowing it was likely the last time he would see him given his father’s condition.
On Sept. 14, the day before the DWCS official weigh-ins, Sosa got the news he was afraid of.
“On Sunday, my father passed away,” Sosa told Hablemos MMA in Spanish. “My brother called me at 5 a.m., which in Lanzarote was 2 pm. He called me, and I was surprised to be getting a call at 5 a.m. I grabbed the phone and saw that it was my brother, so I knew what was going on. I answer, and he was crying, and he said, ‘It’s over. Dad is not here.’ The world came crashing down on me at this moment.”
Sosa was in the midst of making 135 pounds for easily the biggest fight of his life. He was dehydrated, hungry, tired, and now heartbroken after getting that call.
“As people know, the day before weigh-ins is the toughest day,” Sosa said. “Fighters don’t drink water or eat, and they work out and sweat. The energy is on the floor. So I woke up at 5 am and began crying, I couldn’t go back to sleep. I was turned into dust. I was dead with no life, no energy, without eating or drinking. I was destroyed, but I did feel my dad was with me. Like I said on the letter I wrote (the day he passed), I think he wanted it this way. I listened to the final audio he sent me when I was in Las Vegas, and he said, ‘Let’s go, son. We’re going to make weight together, and we’re going to win this fight together.’ That’s what he told me. I get goosebumps just thinking about it because he decided when he wanted to go, so he could travel to me and be with me in the weight cut and make me stronger.”
The UFC was aware of the situation Sosa and his family were dealing with. When officials heard the news, they communicated with his manager, Jason House, and gave him the option to pull out of the event. However, for Sosa, there was no backing out. He was not only fighting for his dream but his father’s as he had told Sosa to go to Vegas and achieve it.
“I said, ‘No, no, no. I’m doing this for him,'” Sosa said. “I kept cutting weight and crying and every tear and drop of sweat was worth it because this made my father eternal. This story has been around the world, and now everybody knows that Hecher Sosa fought for his father. For me, it’s an honor, and I feel proud to have fought under these conditions because I made my father eternal.”
Sosa, who entered DWCS as a slight underdog, went on to beat Lee by unanimous decision and earned a contract with the UFC. It was an incredible moment as he had gone through so much in the lead up to his DWCS bout.
“The Guanche Warrior” is happy to be now in the UFC. He wishes his father could’ve been here to celebrate the moment with him, but he’s also happy the world now knows his story.
“This also might come off bad, but thanks to him, I had all this attention, and the world came to know me,” Sosa said. “I did something very few would do, which is fight two days after the passing of a father, and he wasn’t just a father, he was also my best friend and my confidant. He was the guy I was with on Saturdays and Sundays to watch football (soccer). I told him everything. He was also someone I trusted fully in. He was my everything. He’s the person I most trusted in the world. I would call him whenever I needed help, and he passed two days before the biggest opportunity of my life. I don’t even know where I got the strength from, but I thought, ‘I need to honor him and make this a reality because it was also his dream.'”
Sosa, who was very active, fighting four times a year, wants to take the rest of 2025 off and focus on being there for his family following his father’s passing. He’s back to training, and targets a return in the first quarter of 2026.
