NEW YORK (AP) — Ethyn Ewing slept through dozens of calls and text messages Thursday morning, from everyone from anxious family members to his inner fight camp circle.
Wake up, Ethyn. His UFC dream was waiting for him.
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“My sister, she never calls me in the morning,” Ewing said. “She said, ‘call dad, it’s an emergency.’ I thought it was a car accident or something. I was not thinking (UFC). I called my dad back first. He goes, ’I’m gonna whup your ass if you don’t wake up and answer your phone calls.”
The 27-year-old Ewing answered the bell with about 48 hours’ notice to make his UFC debut on a pay-per-view at — of all places — Madison Square Garden.
He couldn’t be totally blamed for needing some extra shuteye. Ewing had just fought days earlier, winning an MMA fight on Nov. 7 as part of the A1 Combat promotion.
Ewing’s whirlwind 48 hours from call time to bell time whisked him from California to New York with everything — from a weight cut to a weigh in to a late-night stroll through Times Square — thrown in before he fought Malcolm Wellmaker at UFC 322 on Saturday night.
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“Is this real? Am I supposed to be here,” Ewing said as he wandered Times Square. “All the big lights, the action, the movies. This is where it happens.”
From Rudy to Rocky, sports fans love an underdog on the big screen.
The Garden fans sure loved this unknown fighter who stepped in as a last-minute injury replacement and beat the undefeated Wellmaker via unanimous decision to give him two MMA wins in only eight days.
So how does a fight like this happen?
Only the most niche of hardcore fight fans had probably ever heard of Ewing, who dropped his first two pro fights before winning eight straight overall headed into his UFC debut.
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This is where the UFC matchmakers — who meet with CEO Dana White each Tuesday — enter the picture.
Ewing was plucked from a deep well of potential prospects to earn a shot at fighting on a UFC card headlined by two title fights.
Tapology, the leading combat sports database, listed 3,033 MMA fighters who have competed this year through Nov. 15 in the United States and who are not signed to the UFC. If not restricted to the United States, that number balloons to 17,451 fighters.
That’s where UFC matchmaker Sean Selby comes in, a veteran of the fight game who pours through hours of tape each day from even the smallest regional MMA promotions to potentially find the next big star.
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Or least a fighter who’s available in a pinch.
Injuries are part of the game and UFC was in a bit of a bind when Cody Haddon was hurt.
The most pressing question in that circumstance is, should UFC find a replacement fighter or kick the originally scheduled fight down the road?
Wellmaker badly wanted a coveted spot on the UFC 322 preliminary card — and it wasn’t his fault when one opponent dropped out with an injury and then Haddon, Shelby said, “exploded his foot on his trainer’s elbow” during camp, which necessitated another new fighter.
Shelby scouted other fighters ahead of Ewing to find the matchup that made the most sense. One potential prospect was injured. Another was too heavy for the scheduled 145-pound fight. Shelby also scanned a list of fighters already in the UFC pipeline, such as ones involved in “Dana White’s Contender Series.”
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“The worst thing that could ever happen as far as I’m concerned is it ends up being a mismatch,” Shelby said. “I want to set up the most credible spot possible and let the chips fall when they may.”
Ewing emerged as a top target, even though he had fought days earlier in Wheatland, California, where he scored a first-round knockout win. His mandated medical time off was set to expire, so the fighter was off to get checked out, book a flight, and make weight (he said he cut about a dozen pounds to face Wellmaker).
“He probably hadn’t had time to get too fat,” Shelby said. “So, I felt good about it.”
So what’s next for Ewing?
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Shelby said Ewing was considered a rising prospect — he was on the company’s radar for a spot possibly next year in the “Contender” series — and there are no plans to waste the buzz created by the UFC rookie.
“That’s what makes it so amazing for him. It’s so tough to come in short notice,” Shelby said. “(Wellmaker) has been preparing and is at the very, very top of his peaking right then and you’ve got a guy coming in on a day’s notice. You’re worried about doing your medicals, you’re worried about cutting weight. You have all these things stacked against you. He had 24 hours. That’s rare, that a guy comes out like this.”
Ewing actually signed a four-fight deal with UFC ahead of the Wellmaker bout and he could step inside the cage again as soon as early next year. Ewing and his wife are expecting a baby boy on Dec. 10, and he said the impending birth would consume the bulk of his time.
But should another fighter in the preferred 135-pound weight class withdraw, and another pinch-hitter is needed, Ewing could get the call.
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“Because he did this, because he took that chance, everybody’s going to want to see him again,” Shelby said. “He’s bumped way up as far as probably where he’s going to go on the card and what card he’s going to be on.”
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