Thiago Santos will headline his first UFC event next month, and he’s a little surprised it’s actually happening.
In his light heavyweight debut, the Brazilian is set to face Jimi Manuwa in the UFC Sao Paulo main event on Sept. 22. The former middleweight is moving up a weight class on short notice for the injured Glover Teixeira.
At first, however, it seemed that Manuwa was uninterested in the Santos bout on short notice. The British fighter ended up agreeing to it, but that’s not what “Marreta” was expecting.
“I thought he wasn’t going to accept it, considering I’m not in the division,” Santos told MMAjunkie.