If there’s one thing to know about Dan Ige, he’s always ready to fight.
Considering he accepted a fight against Diego Lopes on about three hours’ notice at UFC 303, it’s tough to imagine Ige would every shy away from any opponent or offer the promotion made to him. Just after nearly pulling off the upset over Lopes back in June, Ige made a request to get a slot on the UFC 306 card in September, which was scheduled to take place at Sphere in Las Vegas.
Despite his best efforts to secure an opponent for that date, Ige says a fight never materialized.
“The night of the fight [UFC matchmakers] told me they were going to work on something,” Ige told MMA Fighting. “I saw fights starting to get announced. I was just kind of sitting and waiting and then I saw [Dana White] was going to announce the Noche card. I was at strength and conditioning, it was a Friday, and he said he was going to announce it. So I was like maybe I’m on it. Maybe I just don’t know. Let’s see what happens.
“They end up announcing the card. Just things didn’t work out for me to go out there and fight a Mexican fighter. There wasn’t a fighter available. We were asking for Yair [Rodriguez] because he’s one guy in the top 15 outside of [Brian] Ortega and Lopes, who were already going to fight. He was on the list but he wasn’t ready until like November or December. So we just moved on.”
Ige eventually received an offer to face Lerone Murphy at UFC 308 in Abu Dhabi and he wasted no time accepting the matchup.
Of course there was a moment as he was flying halfway across the globe to get to the event where Ige thought he had another opponent change when an erroneous report started circulating that Murphy was out and he was being replaced by Brazilian prospect Jean Silva.
“I was literally on the plane. I was out flying over the Atlantic ocean at that point and I saw the tweet and I’m like what is this?” Ige said. “Then I started getting hit by reporters. I went and tweeted ‘fake news’ because I didn’t hear nothing. I’m actually going and looking, checking my emails. There’s no emails. I texted Sean Shelby, I’m like I’m trying to take a nap right now. I’m like bro, is this real? I’m getting hit up by reporters and he said fake. It is what it is.
“I would have been ready. Because I didn’t come all this way to not fight. Whatever, it is what is. We’re fighting Saturday, whoever it is. I’ll be ready.”
While he gladly would have accepted anybody as an opponent, Ige is obviously happy that didn’t happen because facing an undefeated contender like Murphy gives him a chance to take a bigger step forward in his career.
“We got the Lerone Murphy [fight]. It’s a big fight on an outstanding pay-per-view,” Ige said. “In my opinion, this PPV, this card, this lineup is stacked. It’s an exciting fight card. It’s a big fight card right in the middle of a PPV so I really have no complaints and I get to fight up in rankings.”
Ige was previously scheduled to face Murphy earlier this year but an injury knocked the British featherweight out of the fight.
Now Ige is excited to finally face him, especially after Murphy scored an impressive win over Edson Barboza back in May.
“Lerone was a guy we were looking at because we were previously booked and then him being ranked ahead of me,” Ige said. “So I knew he was an option. Even guys ranked behind me, it doesn’t matter. I fought the who’s who. I fought guys coming up. I’ve given a lot of guys chances right to fight into the rankings.
“For me to go out there and fight a No. 11 guy and give myself that opportunity to climb the ladder again, I can’t complain about it.”
