RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil — Thiago Santos had a busy month in July even though he didn’t enter the UFC cage to fight.
A couple of months after having his four-fight knockout streak snapped by David Branch at UFC Atlantic City, “Marreta” was offered to replace injured Brad Tavares on short notice against Israel Adesanya. Santos took the fight with no hesitation, but he didn’t know that Tavares wasn’t in fact injured.
The UFC decided to keep Santos as a backup plan for the TUF 27 Finale main event in case something happened to either middleweight, and he flew to Las Vegas and made weight.