Brendan Schaub faces 'legend' Andrei Arlovski at UFC 174
Brendan Schaub has spent the last few weeks of his life just waiting on the call from the UFC to give him a date on the calendar for a fight with Mark Hunt.
Unfortunately that call never came and a few days ago, Schaub came to the harsh realization that the fight with Hunt probably wasn't going to happen and he had to move onto his next assignment inside the Octagon.
With the bulk of the top heavyweights in the UFC already wrapped up in fights or just coming out of bouts, the list seemed short of potential opponents but when Schaub's manager gave him a ring just a couple of days ago, he couldn't believe the name that was uttered.
"My manager called me and I was actually on the beach doing a recovery workout and he goes 'I got some news for you'. He goes 'it's a big one' and I knew the Mark Hunt stuff, Mark was dragging his feet and they wanted to wait till August or September so I was like who do we got? He goes 'Andrei Arlovski' and you got him June 14," Schaub told FOX Sports on Friday. "I couldn't be more excited. Andrei and I have trained together before, he trains at a world-class level. For me it's a legend, it's a world-class fighter. We'll definitely be the talk of UFC 174."
As disappointed as Schaub was that he didn't land the fight with Hunt, hearing that he was getting Arlovski instead was like waking up on Christmas morning to find the house filled to the brim with presents. Schaub looks at Arlovski as one of the true icons of the Octagon, and in name value alone this is a much bigger fight than the bout he was gunning for with Hunt.
"So I shot for the stars and I landed on the moon with Andrei Arlovski. He's a bigger name than Mark Hunt. He's a legend. It's like them calling up and saying you're pitching against Bo Jackson, he's one of the greats," Schaub said.
"You look at the name Arlovski's beat -- Fabricio Werdum, Ben Rothwell, Roy Nelson -- you're talking about the who's who of the sport. A big convincing win, a knockout of Andrei Arlovski, that launches me up there. It couldn't get bigger for me. My coach asked 'well what should we do with this fight?' and I said line up the toughest sons of b--ches you can find because this isn't going to be one of those quick knockouts."
Schaub has been itching to fight ever since his last bout and now he gets a main card slot against a former UFC heavyweight champion returning to the promotion for the first time in over six years.
Now the former Ultimate Fighter runner-up gets the chance to not only face one of the best heavyweights, but a legend -- and that's more than he ever could have hoped for when he started looking for his next fight.
Schaub vs. Arlovski will be a featured bout on the UFC 174 pay-per-view card featuring the main event between flyweight champion Demetrious Johnson and challenger Ali Bagautinov.
