Hecher Sosa is just a couple of hours away from the biggest fight of his professional career — and just a couple of days removed from the death of his father, who passed away while Sosa was cutting weight for his bantamweight headliner against Mackson Lee atop Episode 6 of Dana White’s “Contender Series” tonight (Sept. 16, 2025) at the promotion’s APEX in Las Vegas.
Sosa’s father was reportedly battling cancer
.“At 5 a.m. on Sunday, Las Vegas time, the day the weight cutting starts, my brother calls
me, wakes me up and says, ‘It’s over bro, dad’s gone.’ I told him ‘okay’ and hung up, nothing else came out of me,” Sosa wrote on Instagram. “Hung up to start crying and breaking down and feeling a pain so bad I couldn’t explain it. My dad wasn’t going to see me fight. I couldn’t sleep anymore and I started thinking and I came to the conclusion that my father told me before I left, ‘Son, don’t worry, we started this together and we will finish it together.‘ My manager and UFC asked me if I wanted to move on with the fight and I told them ‘yes,’ because I am a man of my word.”
Sosa, 30, is 13-1 as a pro and the winner of 10 straight.
“I have to honor the memory of my father and if he left his body to be with me inside that cage, we will be in that cage and we will win because we started this together,” Sosa continued. “Because when I win I will look to the sky and see once again his face of pride, I have no doubt. I’m winning this fight and I don’t care who’s in front of me. We made the weight like professionals, despite feeling sad, despite not sleeping for 30 hours, without eating, without drinking, doing saunas, workouts, baths … undoubtedly the toughest weight cut of my life. God gives his worst battles to his best warriors, and here I am once again at his mercy to make history.”
Sosa is coming off a technical knockout victory over Yaman Mjahed at WOW 20 last June in Madrid. As for the 26 year-old Lee, he remains perfect at 9-0 after putting the hurt on Filipe Zacaron during LFA 201 back in February. The action gets underway TONIGHT at 8 p.m. ET on ESPN+.
For more “Contender Series” news and notes click here.
