UFC lightweight Drew Dober struggled to find an opponent for UFC Denver, but finally has a dance partner in the form of Jean Silva.
Silva is making a two-week turnaround, which keeps Dober, who trains at nearby Elevation Fight Team, able to appear at home.
“This is great, I’m here! We had a little scare, we didn’t know if it was going to happen, but here we are, Denver Colorado, UFC, we have a dance partner for Saturday and I’m stoked,” Dober (27-13, 1NC) exclaimed during this week’s UFC Denver media day.
There was a period where things were very much up in the air, with no opponent and a question as to whether he would fight at all. “It was probably like a week, week and a half. We trained a solid seven days not knowing who we were going to fight. But luckily the way I train, it doesn’t matter who I fight.”
Despite not having an opponent, Dober did not take any time off. “When the job’s done, then I sit on my ass. We train for a date, and July 13 was that date,” stated Dober, later adding “we don’t stop the ball from rolling until the fight’s over.”
While Jean Silva is the man who finally signed on the dotted line, Dober revealed that he had accepted a full five opponents for the Denver card.
“I agreed to five different names. I try to make Sean Shelby’s job a little easy. He just says ‘do you want to fight?’ and I say ‘yes,'” said Dober. “The name after the fact, it doesn’t matter to me.”
Asked about the man who finally agreed to fight him, Dober gave his thoughts on the fight.
“He’s fun. I missed UFC 303, so I had to go back and watch it. He’s a fun fighter. He’s spectacular, he takes risks, he hits hard, he engages, and he’s not going to try and lay on me for 15 minutes. I think this match is made for me, made for Denver, Colorado, and it’s going to be Fight of the Night.”
Watch the full UFC Denver media day appearance by Drew Dober above.
