In UFC an injury can change two careers with a single phone call. One fighter falls off a card and, while his team tries to assimilate the bad news, another may receive the opportunity he has been waiting for years: to debut in UFC, face a Top 15 or even compete in a world championship with just a few days of preparation.
These are the well-known short-notice fights and form a much more important part of the workings of UFC than it may seem from the outside.
The recent example of Joel Alvarez agreeing to face Chidi Njokuani in UFC 330 after Geoff Neal's withdrawal fits perfectly into that logic. The Spaniard was training in the United States with Islam Makhachev's team and was fit to compete. A gap appeared and UFC needed to solve it quickly.
But how does UFC find an opponent in a matter of hours?
The answer begins long before the injury occurs.
UFC has a department dedicated to matchmaking and talent recruitment. Sean Shelby and Mick Maynard are the best-known faces of a structure that is not only dedicated to matching fighters who already have a contract. A fundamental part of the job is to know what happens outside of UFC.
That means following regional promotions, champions from minor organizations, Dana White's Contender Series participants, and prospects from virtually every major market in the world.
The image of matchmakers working with huge lists, databases and spreadsheets of possible additions helps to understand how the system works, although there is no public alleged "secret Excel of UFC" with a known official format.
The important thing is the concept.
UFC doesn't start looking from scratch when a fighter who was supposed to compete on Saturday is injured on Tuesday. Talent managers have been building a network for years and following names that could end up on the roster.
Weight, record, age, gym, nationality, experience, availability, level of opponents, style and contractual situation are fundamental data.
There is also information that may be worth gold: who is prepared to fight now.
A manager who communicates that his fighter is training, close to weight and willing to accept an urgent call can put him in a prime position when a drop appears.
Because the problem of finding a substitute is not only about finding someone good enough.
You have to accept the opponent, be able to make weight, pass medical checks, resolve administrative issues and be prepared to travel. Depending on where the event is held, visas, athletic commission licenses and other requirements may also come into play.
That's why being prepared can change a career.
There are also different levels of short notice.
The first is the replacement between fighters who already belong to UFC. One of the participants is injured and the company calls another member of the roster.
Here the prize can be enormous.
An unranked fighter may suddenly be given a chance to face a Top 10. Someone who waited months to compete may appear on a numbered card. And a contender may end up fighting for the championship much earlier than anticipated.
Then there's probably the most interesting scenario: getting your first contract with UFC to save a fight.
For many fighters on the regional circuit, that call represents years of work condensed into a very simple question.
Can you fight this Saturday?
Saying yes can mean going straight into UFC without going down the conventional path of getting a contract through Contender Series or The Ultimate Fighter.
The trade-off is obvious.
Normally the debutant has a few days to study the opponent, prepare a strategy and cut the weight. In addition, on many occasions he enters precisely because he UFC needs an opponent for someone who had already been doing a full camp for weeks.
It's a huge opportunity, but also one of the hardest ways to debut.
Here comes another interesting factor: not all divisions offer the same possibilities.
Getting into lightweight, for example, can be especially tricky. It's one of the most talented categories available worldwide. There are hundreds of good-level professional fighters capable of competing at 155 pounds and UFC can afford to be extremely selective.
In other divisions, the potential market is much smaller.
The heavyweight is the most obvious example.
Finding athletes over 93 kilos who also have cardio, technique, professional experience and enough level to UFC is much more complicated. The historical depth of the category itself shows that the number of candidates prepared to compete at the highest level is lower than that existing in lightweight, bantamweight or featherweight.
That's why a promising heavyweight can walk the road to UFC much faster than a lightweight with a similar relative level.
Flyweight also has particularities.
There are not the same number of elite professional athletes capable of competing at 125 pounds as in categories such as lightweight or welterweight, especially when a substitute UFC needed to be found at very short notice and in a given region.
That doesn't mean that getting into flyweight or heavyweight is easy. The level of UFC is still very high. It means that the numerical competition for each possible slot may be less than in the most saturated divisions.
The history of UFC is full of examples that demonstrate how far a last-minute call can take.
Probably the most famous is Michael Bisping.
In 2016, Chris Weidman fell out of his rematch against Luke Rockhold and Bisping agreed to contest the middleweight championship with just over two weeks of preparation.
The situation seemed terrible for the Briton.
Rockhold had already defeated him before and Bisping had been chasing a shot for the belt for years without getting it. He arrived with limited preparation and against one of the most dominant champions of the moment.
He ended up knocking out Rockhold in the first round.
A short-notice call made Michael Bisping a UFC champion and completely changed the way his career is remembered.
Nate Diaz starred in another of the great cases.
Rafael dos Anjos was due to face Conor McGregor in UFC 196, but an injury left the Irishman unchallenged. Diaz agreed to enter with about a week and a half of margin and the fight ended up being held at welterweight to facilitate the replacement.
McGregor arrived after knocking out José Aldo in 13 seconds.
Diaz ended up submitting him in the second round.
That fight changed the careers of both and gave rise to one of the most economically important rivalries in modern UFC history.
Al Iaquinta experienced an even more chaotic situation in UFC 223.
Tony Ferguson was due to face Khabib Nurmagomedov. Ferguson was injured. Max Holloway agreed to replace him with six days' notice, but he was ultimately not medically cleared to compete.
UFC needed another plan.
Iaquinta, who was already on the card, ended up facing Khabib practically overnight. Nurmagomedov won by decision, but that night he unexpectedly made Iaquinta the protagonist of a fight that ended up crowning the Russian.
Joe Soto took the concept even further.
He was set to make his debut at UFC 177 in the preliminaries when Renan Barao struggled during his weight cut before facing champion TJ Dillashaw.
Soto then received a surrealist proposal.
His first fight in UFC would no longer be a preliminary. He would make his debut directly in the main event contesting the world championship.
He accepted.
Dillashaw ended up knocking him out in the fifth round, but Soto went in a matter of hours from being an unknown debutant to a large part of the public to competing for more than twenty minutes for a belt of UFC.
These cases explain why many managers keep their fighters prepared even when they don't have a close fight yet.
Being close to weight, having documentation ready, and maintaining a permanent camp has a physical and economic cost, but it can also allow you to take advantage of one-time opportunities.
UFC also obtains very valuable information from these situations.
Accepting a short notice doesn't guarantee any future favor, but it does show availability. And in a company that hosts events virtually every week, having fighters capable of solving problems has obvious value.
The short warning, moreover, can completely break the sporting hierarchy.
Normally a career is built step by step: debut, several victories, higher level rivals, ranking and finally great fights.
An injury can skip several stages at once.
The risk is exactly proportional to the reward.
You can become Michael Bisping and go from substitute to world champion.
You can be Nate Diaz and transform an unexpected call into the fight that changes your dimension as a star.
Or you can accept facing an opponent who has been training specifically to compete for eight weeks and find out why no one else wanted to pick up the phone.
That's the real way short ads work in UFC.
Behind a seemingly improvised call there is a huge matchmaking and recruitment machine that has been followed by fighters, promotions and divisions around the world for years.
When an injury strikes, UFC doesn't need to find the perfect fighter.
He needs to quickly find the best possible fighter who can meet a fundamental condition.
Be prepared to say yes.