Rafael Fiziev dealt with quite the adventure in the 24 hours before his latest UFC Vegas 58 win over Rafael dos Anjos.
Tasked with the first UFC main event of his career, Fiziev ultimately delivered one of the finest performances of his octagon run, knocking out the former UFC champion with a fifth-round salvo that extended Fiziev’s win streak to six straight and propelled him into a No. 7 spot on MMA Fighting’s lightweight rankings. It almost ended in disaster when, one night before the big fight, he took a quick decision to try and sleep for it.
” He couldn’t sleep the night before his fight so he took one melatonin tablet.” Sayat Abdrakhmanov was Fiziev’s translator and manager. This revelation was made recently by The MMA Hour .
“Then he took second [pill]. Third. He couldn’t get to sleep, so he tried another CBD chewable with melatonin. After he took it, I asked him if he had taken too much melatonin. Is it going to affect me during the fight?’ I was like, ‘Why do you do something and then think about what you’re doing [after]? !’
“So he went to the bathroom — and then he made himself throw up all this, the pills he took, all the melatonin pills he took.”
“I ate seven pills of melatonin in total,” added Fiziev. “I started to be scared, like maybe I might go sleep in the fight, so I needed to go throw up [with my fingers].”
“I was like, ‘Why do you keep doing this? Everything was perfect and you just came up with this [idea],'” Abdrakhmanov continued with a laugh.
Luckily, Fiziev ended up OK. He said he didn’t feel any residual effects against dos Anjos and was happy to avoid a situation similar to the one that nearly torpedoed UFC featherweight champion Alexander Volkanvoski in his July 2020 rematch against Max Holloway at UFC 251.
But alas, his reckless willingness to ingest sleeping pills en masse wasn’t the only thing that gave Fiziev fits in the hours before his first main event at UFC Vegas 58.
His inner monologue also contributed — it was not the first.
“I’ll tell you some stories, some small stories about the small p**** inside of me,” Fiziev explained. “Because always before fight, I have small, small p**** inside of me — and before fights, they start talking, ‘Oh, you’ve lost. This guy is going to knock you out. Oh, this guy smashing you.’ All of these. And when I go into the cage, this p**** [shuts] off. They say, “Hey, are you okay?” You want to tell me what’s up now?'”
“He’s basically saying that there is a coward in him,” said Abdrakhmanov. “Once he makes his walk to octagon, this little coward runs away until the next fight. Then, when the next fight is over, this coward returns and tells him “Oh, you’re going lose” and other things. And then, he kicks him out .
All in all, it was an eventful lead-up to a memorable night for Fiziev.
The 29-year-old Kazakhstan native still got the job done and put himself in position for a big fight next — one that, if he gets his wish, could come against two-time title challenger Justin Gaethje. Fiziev has learned his lesson on melatonin, at the very least.
” I’m not going to use that s*** again,” Fiziev laughed.
