Ethyn Ewing made one of the most improbable UFC debuts in history when he accepted a fight on less than two days’ notice and then somehow pulled off a victory.
Following a win in Urijah Faber’s promotion
on a Friday, Ewing got a call six days later asking if he would be interested in fighting at UFC 322 in New York. At the time, Ewing was just hours removed from a celebration dinner than included a triple burger from In-N-Out along with some animal fries but there was no way he was turning down that opportunity.
“Friday’s my fight, we get back on Saturday morning super early,” Ewing told MMA Fighting. “I kept moving throughout the week. I wasn’t fully off. Thursday morning I wake up to a whole lot of missed phone calls, a whole lot of text messages from a whole lot of people. Called my dad first because I thought there was car accident or something because my sister [said] ‘call dad, it’s an emergency!’ I’m like oh shoot, what’s going on here?’ Call him, he’s all fired up, call your coach, the UFC’s on the line!
“I called coach and once that was confirmed, I threw on my sauna suit, went over to the gym, started working out, started cutting weight. Went to the sauna. I think they confirmed it somewhere around there and you’ve got to get this, this and this medical.”
Ewing traveled all around the Los Angeles area to get his required medical testing done but he still had a cross-country flight awaiting him with UFC 322 taking place in New York City. In the middle of all this, he had to cut weight after agreeing to face highly touted prospect Malcolm Wellmaker at 145 pounds (both fighters usually compete at bantamweight) but that still required some effort considering he was walking around at 157 with basically 18 hours to go until he stepped on the scale.
But Ewing did everything necessary to ensure he’d hit the mark for his UFC debut even if nothing happened under the best of circumstances.
“I went straight to LAX, sat in the airport, jumped on the airplane at 11 o’clock, landed 6:30, 7-ish, once we were out of the airport,” Ewing said. “Sat in dead stop traffic for about an hour and a half and once I arrived there, they rushed me up to the fighter area.
“I was able to put on the Venum gear and then I was backstage at the official weigh-ins. I ran up there and jumped on it and I was good to go.”
When he initially accepted the fight, Ewing didn’t even ask about the opponent. It wasn’t until later he got Wellmaker’s name and actually had the chance to watch some fights before facing off with him on stage at Madison Square Garden.
Less than a day later, Ewing made his walk to the octagon where he put on a masterful performance to beat Wellmaker by decision in a fight where the odds were obviously stacked against him.
Wellmaker had torched three straight opponents between The Contender Series and his two fights in the UFC and the expectation was that he’d do the same to Ewing. Instead, the tables were turned and Ewing put on a stunning performance to shut down Wellmaker’s power during the three-round fight.
“I knew that I was going to be more technical than him in the striking,” Ewing said. “I knew that going into it. I had to be patient and careful about that right hook. I really had to glue [my hand] up here because I have a tendency to bring it down sometimes. I glued that up there, I made sure that was cemented.
“I made sure I was patient because the biggest thing with him, people get impatient. They either jump in or bite on a feint that he’s throwing and that’s where he catches them with that big power. I just knew if I mitigated that, the rest is history.”
It was a fantastic performance, especially considering how Ewing got the fight on Thursday and then somehow delivered a victory on Saturday. But of course his win was also suddenly used as a way to tear down Wellmaker with critics immediately claiming that the previously undefeated prospect wasn’t actually as good as advertised, especially since he got beat by a short-notice replacement opponent.
Ewing definitely took exception to those comments.
“I think it’s ridiculous to say he got fraud checked,” Ewing said. “He’s a talented individual. I’ve got nothing but respect for him. He was very cordial, very cool from the very beginning so I appreciate him taking the fight. I appreciate everything about it. It’s ridiculous. Who’s saying that? All the guys sitting on their couch tweeting and texting about it and commenting? All these fans of the sport. They’re not martial artists. They don’t know what it is to go in and step in front of a crowd of that magnitude and do combat, hand to hand, but nothing but tiny four-ounce gloves on. Your shins exposed, your knees exposed and that’s it. They don’t understand what it takes. They don’t understand what it means. They don’t understand the magnitude.
“So I’ve got nothing but respect to the guy. He’s a tremendous athlete and I think it takes away from my performance for people to say that. I just don’t think anybody knew who I was.”
Well, Ewing definitely won’t have that unknown factor going for him when he books his next fight in the UFC, which is why he’s promising to work that much harder to prove this wasn’t a fluke or some flash in the pan performance.
Ewing is definitely happy at how things played out at UFC 322 but he admits that fight needs to serve as a springboard to even bigger and better things for the future.
“This is just the beginning,” Ewing said. “I’m just scratching the surface. I have so much room to grow and I love putting in the hard work. I love the lifestyle that it means to be a fighter. There’s much improvement to be made and much hard work that’s going to go into this.”
As far as his celebration goes, Ewing joked that his wife just happened to talk him out of getting ice cream the night before he ended up getting the call to join the UFC roster.
Now that he just secured his win at UFC 322 and moved to 2-0 over the span of eight days, Ewing has earned a cheat day.
“Yes I did,” Ewing said about indulging a little bit after his win. “I got some ice cream yesterday.”
