Joshua Van had already secured an opportunity to compete on The Contender Series in August and was looking forward to his chance to earn a UFC contract. However, things changed when his manager called him unexpectedly with a new opportunity.

Zhalgas Zhumagulov had lost an opponent for the third time in a row, and the UFC urgently needed to get him booked for a fight. After Felipe Burns was pulled from UFC Vegas 75, the promotion decided to arrange a new fight for Zhumagulov for the UFC Jacksonville card just a week later. That’s where Van enters the picture.

Van shared his experience saying that his manager called him last minute and asked if he would be available to fight after just two or three days. He got an offer to fight against Zhumagulov but didn’t even bother to ask about the opponent’s name until later.

Van accepted the offer to fight without hesitation, stating that he never watches fights like that, as he doesn’t really care unless it’s Conor McGregor or Israel Adesanya. For him, it was just a matter of showing up and fighting.

After ending the call, Van immediately checked in with his head coach to make sure that he was on board with the plan to debut in the UFC just a few days later. Van promises that he wasn’t scared or necessarily overwhelmed, although the stomach-churning excitement definitely got the better of him.

Despite not being in a training camp or putting in the necessary conditioning work, Van was willing to take on the challenge, knowing that he is always ready to out-violence any opponent. Van was not in the best shape but was still in good shape and ready to fight. He always stays ready just in case, as he was born to fight.

Van’s coach is Daniel Pineda, who is always willing to fight anyone, so Van knew that getting permission from his coach wouldn’t be a problem. Now, taking any fight on just over one week’s notice is never going to be an ideal situation, but Van won’t make any excuses because he was only thinking about winning on Saturday.