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00:00What was it like for you when you got that call, jump in there and be part of this Bantamweight tournament on short notice?
00:07Man, hey, from what I heard, he was supposed to win the whole damn thing.
00:11But now, Brian, it was crazy, man.
00:16I've been training since I was 18 years old, and I've been wanting to fight in the major leagues for a long time now.
00:22I'm not going to lie, I feel like I've been passed up, and I've been undersold a lot by a lot of different companies and people.
00:30BFL called, gave me that chance.
00:33Hey, you want to fight the 16-1 Russian on two weeks' notice?
00:36I couldn't say no.
00:38I couldn't say no to that.
00:39It was terrifying, man.
00:42Two weeks' notice against a stud, but I've been preparing my whole life for it, and I couldn't say no to the opportunity.
00:50And I saw what happened, and I came in there and kind of shocked the world.
00:53Not kind of, I did.
00:55Well, you took the opportunity and made the most of it.
00:57As you said, he was a big favorite because of you coming in there late.
01:00You missed weight a little bit at the weigh-ins, but of course, I'm sure it's a lot because of just the short notice, not having the proper time to cut that weight.
01:08Do you think that affected you at all?
01:10Do you think your performance was what you expected and things went how you wanted with all the fighting and the clinch and just trying to get the upper hand in that?
01:17Or was there kind of something else you would have liked to show that you couldn't because of the short notice for the weight cut, the prep, and all that?
01:25Yeah, I did some calculations with my nutritionist on the weight cut, and I do believe I could have made the weight.
01:32I started my water cut just a little too early, which put me into a really bad retention mode, which made the weight cut absolutely terrible.
01:41I've been competing since I was a kid in wrestling, man.
01:45I've never missed weight ever in my life.
01:47So to step on the scale and see the 138, I did not like that at all, man.
01:54And I know the story coming in was I was a lot bigger than my opponent.
01:57My body would have looked the same with the fan weights in the world, I think.
02:01And stylistically, I love this matchup against Kano.
02:05He was a heavy wrestler fighter, much like myself.
02:08So stylistically, I knew I could keep up with him.
02:11I could wrestle with a matter of how my condition is up in a wrestling-heavy fight.
02:16And I thought after the first round, I was going to be dead exhausted, tired from wrestling this dude.
02:22And we'll just see, but after the first round, still, I was good.
02:28Even a really, really bad weight cut, I reloaded properly.
02:31After that first round, I was like, I can beat this dude, definitely.