Rafael Fiziev suffered a second decision loss to Justin Gaethje in the co-main event of UFC 313 on Saturday night and has now revealed that he’s weighing up the possibility of dropping down a division to featherweight.
“I’m thinking right now about changing weight divisions,” Fiziev said on the Ariel Helwani Show. “I’m starting to think about changing weight divisions because I really cut weight very easy this time and this was short notice. It was very easy. All this week my nutritionist Jason, he tried to gain my weight because my weight go low so fast. Right now, I have to think about it.”
A couple of years ago the 32-year-old Fiziev was riding a six-fight winning streak in the UFC’s lightweight division, defeating the likes of Rafael dos Anjos, Renato Moicano and Bobby Green along the way, but he’s since lost three fights in a row.
That includes his back-to-back defeats against Gaethje, and after facing him for a second time Fiziev has acknowledged that he felt undersized in the match-up, and as such he thinks he could make a bigger impact against the leading fighters at 145lbs.
“I want to fight with top guys, some of the top guys,” Fiziev said. “All of those guys in the top 10 are interesting. These guys are in trouble if I come here. They will be in trouble. Everybody.”
