This was the third time Gaziev and Spivac were scheduled to face each other in the UFC. That heavyweight pairing was first selected for a UFC Fight Night event in May, and then moved on to UFC 316 in June. Gaziev left that meeting with a broken finger, and it was Cortés-Acosta who replaced him, beating Spivac by unanimous decision.
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Now, once again, Cortés-Acosta comes to the rescue, flying to Qatar as a late replacement to salvage another heavyweight fight. The news was first reported by ESPN Deportes.
This comes just three weeks after Cortés-Acosta’s controversial knockout victory over Delija at UFC Vegas 110 on November 1. In that fight, Cortes-Acosta initially appeared to have been stopped by punches in the first round, but a replay confirmed that it was actually a Delija punch to the eye that prompted referee Mark Smith to intervene.
After a long and sometimes chaotic delay, combat resumed. Cortés-Acosta dealt the final blow just seconds later, flooring Delija with a punch and finishing him off with ground blows to earn the TKO victory.
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Cortes-Acosta will now make a quick turnaround to face Gaziev, who has won two straight in the UFC after suffering the only loss of his career against Jairzinho Rozenstruik last year. Gaziev, who fights from nearby Bahrain, had a much shorter trip and longer preparation period for this event. As he wrote in X, he hopes to have some home-field advantage in the Persian Gulf region, which he referred to as “my territory.”
Cortes-Acosta comes into this fight as the No. 6 heavyweight in the UFC rankings, while Gaziev is currently ranked No. 11. This will be Cortes-Acosta’s fifth fight of 2025, an unusually busy pace for a heavyweight, particularly in the UFC.
Gaziev, on the other hand, has fought just once so far this year, beating little-known Thomas Peterson by TKO in February.