nt"

Billy Quarantillo wasn’t looking for a catchweight fight, but he’ll take it.

At UFC on ESPN 9 on Saturday, Quarantillo (13-2 MMA, 1-0 UFC) takes on Spike Carlyle. According to Quarantillo, the fight is taking place at 150 pounds at the request of Carlyle (9-1 MMA, 1-0 UFC).

With UFC president Dana White telling fighters he wasn’t interested in catchweight fights during the COVID-19 pandemic, Quarantillo was a bit surprised when the offer crossed his plate.

“After hearing Dana White saying they weren’t doing any catchweights, I made sure to keep my weight down,” Quarantillo told MMA Junkie on Monday. “They came back and said Spike was worried about making weight. They said, ‘You can either fight Spike at 155 or 150,’ or they’d look for someone else – but it’s slim pickings right now because of this whole pandemic. There’s not a lot of options. I said, ‘That’s fine.’

“I don’t want to give him too much of an advantage because it would have been a pretty normal cut for me to 145 because I stayed in really good shape. I said, ‘I’ll do it at 150. That’s fine. Make sure he’s comfortable. I want to take this fight.’ I don’t want him to be stressing over the weight cut too much, but I also don’t want him to have too much of a size advantage. I expect him to be a little bit bigger than me. That could be an advantage or a disadvantage. It was his idea to bump it up a little bit. I would’ve been fine with 145, but it is what it is. I didn’t want to miss out on fighting.”

Both Quarantillo and Carlyle are coming off of dominant UFC debuts. In December, Quarantillo manhandled fellow UFC debutant Jacob Kilburn en route to a second-round submission. Two months later, Carlyle upset Aalon Cruz (a teammate of Quarantillo’s) with a first-round TKO.

“I did watch his first fight,” Quarantillo said. “He fought one of my teammates, Aalon Cruz. He’s a good fighter. At this level, everyone is really good. I think I’ve got what it takes to beat him. When he fought Aalon, I thought it’d be someone I’d be matched up with eventually.”

Fans can expect an exciting scrap on Saturday, predicted Quarantillo. Considering the stylistic matchup, Quarantillo envisions bonus money in his near future and is gunning for the finish.

“I know it’s going to be an exciting fight; I can tell,” Quarantillo said. “It’s going to be up there with ‘Fight of the Night.’ I know we can get that or ‘Performance of the Night.’ … We’ll see if taking this fight on shorter notice effects him or me more. I just know it’s going to be non-stop action. I’m looking for the kill every second of that fight. I don’t want to stay in there too long, so I’m looking for the finish. I’m looking to make a statement.”

UFC on ESPN 9 takes place Saturday at the UFC Apex in Las Vegas. The event airs on ESPN and streams on ESPN+.