Bogdan Guskov has stepped in on less than two weeks notice as a late replacement for the injured Khalil Rountree Jr against Magomed Ankalaev in the main event of UFC Fight night 282 in Abu Dhabi on July 25th.

Guskov appears not to have been the only fighter that the UFC approached about the fight as Paulo Costa has revealed he was asked, but chose to turn it down due to it being on short notice and without any increase in pay.

Jan Blachowicz, who was scheduled to fight Guskov at UFC Fight Night 283 a week later, was also offered the fight, but wasn’t immediately sure he could make the weight in time and so needed some time to think about the offer. However, a couple of hours later he discovered that Guskov had already taken the opportunity instead, and so he now needs a new opponent for his upcoming fight.

As for the 33-year-old Guskov, he comes into this new match-up off a majority draw against the aforementioned Blachowicz back in December of last year.

Prior to that Guskov had won four fights in a row inside the distance, starting with KO and TKO victories over Zac Pauga and Ryan Spann respectively.

Then he submitted Billy Elekana and followed that up with a KO win against Nikita Krylov. As such he currently holds the No.10 spot on the light-heavyweight rankings.

He’ll now fight the 34-year-old Ankalaev, who amassed a 14-fight unbeaten run in the division that culminated in a unanimous decision victory over Alex Pereira in March of last year to lift the light-heavyweight title.

However, Ankalaev then went on to lose an immediate rematch with Pereira back in October of last year by TKO just 80 seconds into the fight, leaving him ranked No.2.

Ankalaev vs. Guskov remains the main event for UFC Fight Night 282, which will also feature Steve Erceg vs. Ramazan Temirov and Valter Walker vs. Thomas Peterson.