‘Fighters fight, man’: Junior Tafa replaces Justin Tafa in wild weigh-in scenes at UFC 298
Justin Tafa is out and younger brother - the “10 push-up king” - Junior has stepped in. But how did it play out? Watch the exclusive video here.
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After pumping out a quick set of 10 push-ups in the hotel lobby, Junior Tafa waltzed into a conference room at the Hyatt Regency singing the chorus of Steppenwolf’s classic ‘Born to be Wild’.
He then sat down at a table and signed a fight contract allowing him to replace his injured brother, Justin, and fight Marcos Rogerio de Lima at UFC 298 the very next day.
Barely 70 minutes later, Junior stepped on the scales, weighed in at 249-pounds – well below the 265-pound heavyweight limit – and made the fight official.
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In doing so, he became the latest ever late-notice replacement fighter in UFC history.
His song selection was perfect on what was one of the wildest weigh-in mornings on record.
“I’ve done my push-ups, got a little pump and now I’m ready,” he said, after likely becoming the only fighter to complete his entire fight camp in a hotel lobby 90 minutes before weighing in.
“I’m one of a kind. It’s the latest replacement they’ve ever seen.
“That’s how I would like my training camps to be, 10 push-ups every month. I’m not born for training camps, I’m born to fight.
“I started my kickboxing career on these late notice fights. They expected a dumb coconut to come in, but I came in and knocked the lights out of them.”
An hour-and-a-half earlier, while speaking to this masthead, Tafa’s phone rang. “It’s Mick,” he said, indicating that UFC match-maker Mick Maynard – a fellow Aussie – was on the other end of the line.
Asked how their conversation went, Tafa said: “He goes, ‘Are you really keen?’ and I said, ‘Fighers fight, man’.”
And that was that.
In a cruel twist of fate, it was Junior who was grappling with his older brother Justin on Wednesday (LA time) when Justin injured his knee.
Clearly devastated for his older bro, Junior stressed it was just a training accident.
“I didn’t do it, I swear to God,” Junior said. “I heard a pop in his leg. I didn’t want to tell anyone, I was the last one to do the grappling rounds and I didn’t want the blame on me.
“I didn’t wear a shirt, I had nothing to soak up the sweat and all the sweat went straight to the mat.
“It wasn’t my fault.”
Stepping in, Junior said, seemed like the only natural decision he could make.
“I’m hurting for my brother, I wish my brother could fight, but can I do?” he said. “What’s been done is done, and you’ve just gotta make a good situation out of shit ones.
“My brother would’ve done the same thing. If I’d pulled out with injury, my brother would’ve been the first one to put his hand up.
“My brother has my back the same way I have his back.”
As the rest of the fighters on the card weighed in, a forlorn Justin sat in a chair, wearing his Toa Samoa bucket hat, and waited for a car to pick him up and take him back to his AirBnB.
“(It was) my very last session of camp, the very last grappling session, my knee just gave out somehow,” he said.
“I came hobbling into the media session right after, and I thought it would come right, but it got worse.
“I had to do the smart thing (and pull out). There’s no use me going out there and looking like a piece of concrete. I couldn’t bear any weight.”
Tafa said he gave his knee every chance of coming right before he was left with no option but to withdraw.
“I tried to get treatment on it after, but I think I got the wrong kind of treatment,” he said. “I went and got some needling done.
“I think it inflamed it more. I’m pretty sure it could be a tear in my muscle in my knee, and into my hammy.
“Last night, we went to hit pads, and I thought I was going to fall over, so we had to make a call as a team.”
Meanwhile, main event fighters Alexander Volkanovski and Ilia Topuria both made weight at 144.5-pounds, hitting the scales before anyone else on the card.
In the middleweight co-main event, Robert Whittaker and Paulo Costa both hit the scales at 185.5-pounds.
Originally published as ‘Fighters fight, man’: Junior Tafa replaces Justin Tafa in wild weigh-in scenes at UFC 298
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