Las Vegas — In the mind of Poland’s Jakub Wiklacz, there was no question that Muin Gafurov had tapped at the end of their UFC Vegas 113 “bantamweight fight.”
Bantamweight it was truly not after Gafurov missed weight by five pounds. And on top of that controversy, at the end of the third round, the former ONE Championship fighter appeared to tap to a late guillotine, then denied it.
Wiklacz (18-3-2) wasn’t buying it. “I felt the tap, but first I just grabbed this gilly, and I was like, maybe it won’t be a submission, but I’ll try,” he told Cageside Press following the bout at the Meta Apex on Saturday. “Then I could hear he was breathing hard.” In his head, Wiklacz told himself “I got him, I got him. I need to continue that.”
Wiklacz felt the tap, and the ref ended the fight, though it was initially due to time running out. “He’s like ‘it was the time, it was the time’ and [I’m] like ‘f*ck no, it wasn’t time, it was a tapout. Just rewatch it! Rewatch it!’ And then I’m waiting for a replay, and I see him tapping out and I was f*cking crazy.”
Wiklacz and Gafurov paid each other their respects after the bout, but Wiklacz was sure to tell him that he’d tapped out. Gafurov suggested they wait and see— the replay in the end showed Wiklacz had the submission win with one second on the clock.
At 2-0 in the UFC now, with victories of Gafurov and former Bellator star Patchy Mix, Wiklacz is hoping to fight in America more, or bring the UFC to Poland. America, however, is where he feels he can grow his fan base.
“I want to win, but I know I have a style like this that they will love me,” he noted.
The 29-year old former KSW champ also revealed that there was no thought of declining the fight despite Gafurov coming in heavy.
“No. Maybe in another period of the career, maybe I will think about it. But in the UFC, I just want to show myself that, I don’t want to just stay here, win fight, lose fight, win fight, lose fight. I just want to get to the top. That’s why I was like, ‘okay.'”
When UFC matchmaker Sean Shelby told him that Gafurov wasn’t going to make weight, he conferred with his team, but it didn’t take long for him to accept.
“It’s even better to win with an opponent who didn’t cut the weight, and he was fresh,” suggested Wiklacz. “At first, I was feeling like he didn’t respect me, but now I like him. I have nothing to do with him, I just want to show that I belong here, and I want to get a ranked opponent.”
Watch the full UFC Vegas 113 post-fight press conference with Jakub Wiklacz above.
