Dan Ige will now face Andre Fili in the co-main event of UFC Fight Night 236 on February 10th.
The news comes following the announcement that Lerone Murphy has had to withdraw for the bout against Ige due to an injury.
Fili takes the short notice call up on the back of a first round demolition of Lucas Almeida at UFC 296. Having only been able to make the walk twice last year, the Team Alpha Male man will no doubt be hoping that the quick start will need to a more active 2024. This year will mark ‘Touchy’s’ 11th in the UFC and ever since signing he has been more than happy to compete against whoever the UFC have put in front of him. As admirable as that is, it has led to Fili Earning a 11-9 record with the promotion.
In terms of accepting whoever was put in front of him, Fili started as he meant to go on, facing Max Holloway in just his second fight with the promotion. It took four years with the UFC before Fili landed his first winning streak when after a loss to Calvin Kattar at UFC 214, he beat Artem Lobov and Dennis Bermudez, via unanimous and split decision respectively.
Fili then found himself on the wrong side of split decision against Michael Johnson at UFC Fight Night 135, before once again establishing a two-fight run with victories against Myles Jury and Sheymon Moraes. Since then, it has been a frustrating time for Fili, having gone 3-4-0-1 since 2020 but all four losses came against solid opponents in Sodiq Yusuff, Bryce Mitchell, Joanderson Brito and Nathaniel Wood.
Fili will be hoping to build on the back of the Almeida win and take a big scalp in the form of Ige.
Fellow UFC veteran will be making the walk to the octagon for the 16th time in his professional career in the Fili contest. After winning his contract on the 2017 season of Dana White’s Contender Series and losing his promotional debut, ‘50k’ went on a 6-fight win streak beating the lies of Danny Henry and Edson Barboza in the process. The run led Ige earning the number 10 spot in the rankings and a showdown with the number 6 ranked Calvin Kattar. After being rocked late in the first round, Ige regained composure and built into the fight but Kattar remained calm and took the unanimous decision victory.
Much like Fili, since 2020 Ige has struggled to establish a solid run of form going 3-4 in his last seven. The parallels with Fili don’t stop there as much like his opponent on February 10th, Ige is also happy to fight whoever it is that is put in front of him and the four losses came against extremely credible opponents in Chang Sung Jung, Josh Emmett, Movsar Evloev and Bryce Mitchell.
Headlining the card, Joe Pyfer will look to break into the rankings in an intense Middleweight clash with the 10 ranked Jack Hermansson.
