Chad Anheliger open to dropping down to flyweight, wants UFC debut this year

Chad Anheliger was confident he would be able to shock many and beat Muin Gafurov on the Contender Series.

Anheliger entered the fight as a sizeable underdog and after dropping the first round, knocked down Gafurov in the second. The third round was close but when they went to the scorecards, the Canadian was confident he had done enough to win the fight.

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“The fight played out, I’m not exaggerating, exactly how we thought it would. I was going to have a high scramble pace and always keep moving,” Anheliger said on Just Scrap Radio on BJPENN.com. “I knew I had to deal with some of his dangers of the first round and I kept moving, as I knew that was his best chance to win the fight. Once we got out of the first round I knew I could start taking over and implementing my game. The fight played out how we wanted to and I got the win and I felt pretty good about it.”

When he got his hand raised, the wait for Chad Anheliger began. He had to wait for the other fights to end before Dana White would say if he got the contract. While he was sitting there, he didn’t know if he was going to get it, but he felt like he had done enough to earn a UFC deal.

Ultimately, Anheliger did do enough as White decided to give him a UFC contract.

“I was the first one so you never know what his mood was going to be. I was also sitting there with a split decision win, I didn’t sit there with all the confidence in the world,” Anheliger explained. “For me, I would’ve felt very shafted if guys that got a quick TKO got in but guys like me who poured 15 minutes of myself and showed off my skill set didn’t, but Dana knows and he signed me.”

With Chad Anheliger now signed to the UFC, he hopes he can make his Octagon debut in December. However, if it happens early next year he is fine with that as he plans to stay ready for anything that may come his way.

“Yeah, man. Once I feel like I have caught back up, I will jump on the phone and try and find a fight,” Anheliger said. “I want to fight this year, if everything went great it would be December, but things have happened so fast so I haven’t gotten to the point of planning.”

While he does wait to get his first UFC fight, Anheliger says he does plan to sit down with the coaches and managers to see if he should drop down to flyweight. He was the Rise FC flyweight and bantamweight champion and started his career at 125lbs. However, Anheliger believes he is better at bantamweight and says there are more exciting fights for him.

“It’s something I can do, but the reality is, I can’t do the rest of my life like my job. I can’t work eight hours a day and then train five hours at night if I’m not eating. It’s something I will talk to my manager about, I know I can beat these guys at 135 and I’ve always fought better at 135,” Anheliger concluded. “I’m so split on it that I don’t care either way… I’m not really getting too far ahead of myself with callouts. I don’t see me seeing a scenario of me getting a name from the UFC and me not wanting it, I want them all. I don’t really care, there are exciting fights out there.”

Who would you like to see Chad Anheliger fight in his debut?