{"id":12474,"date":"2025-07-22T04:04:07","date_gmt":"2025-07-22T04:04:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/12474\/"},"modified":"2025-07-22T04:04:07","modified_gmt":"2025-07-22T04:04:07","slug":"ryan-spann-says-first-heavyweight-win-at-ufc-318-almost-surreal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/12474\/","title":{"rendered":"Ryan Spann says first heavyweight win at UFC 318 &#8216;almost surreal&#8217;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>NEW ORLEANS \u2013 Ryan Spann rebounded emphatically for his first heavyweight win.<\/p>\n<p>Spann (23-11 MMA, 9-6 UFC) <a href=\"https:\/\/sports.yahoo.com\/article\/emotional-ryan-spann-makes-quick-231511198.html\" data-ylk=\"slk:submitted Lukasz Brzeski;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas;outcm:mb_qualified_link;_E:mb_qualified_link;ct:story;\" class=\"link  yahoo-link\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">submitted Lukasz Brzeski<\/a> (9-7-1 MMA, 1-6 UFC) with a guillotine choke in the first round of Saturday&#8217;s UFC 318 prelims at Smoothie King Center. Spann is relieved after his heavyweight debut didn&#8217;t go his way, where he was knocked out by Waldo Cortes-Acosta in March.<\/p>\n<p>Advertisement<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I guess it&#8217;s almost surreal because coach T.J., Charles, and coach Sayif, they basically walk me through the whole thing,&#8221; Spann told reporters during his post-fight news conference. &#8220;That was 100 percent the coach&#8217;s call (on heavyweight move). I just show up. I&#8217;m the bullet. I just do whatever. I&#8217;m going to be ready whatever weight.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>So does that mean Spann would consider a move back down to light heavyweight?<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I have the blueprint for both so, it doesn&#8217;t really matter,&#8221; Spann said. &#8220;I&#8217;m not saying that (heavyweight being a permanent move). We&#8217;ll see.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The 33-year-old explained how adjustments resulted in a much more successful outcome in his second appearance at heavyweight.<\/p>\n<p>Advertisement<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Honestly I felt like the heavyweight debut was just me getting on the scale, thinking that I didn&#8217;t have to weigh in,&#8221; Spann said. &#8220;So, the last three weeks of that was atrocious. I wanted to make sure we finished, we executed. Big part of the game plan, we wanted to finish and execute. Tonight was the final preparation.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>This article originally appeared on MMA Junkie: <a href=\"https:\/\/mmajunkie.usatoday.com\/story\/sports\/ufc\/2025\/07\/21\/ufc-318-ryan-spann-surreal-win\/85306908007\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:UFC 318: Ryan Spann reflects on &#039;surreal&#039; win;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">UFC 318: Ryan Spann reflects on &#8216;surreal&#8217; win<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NEW ORLEANS \u2013 Ryan Spann rebounded emphatically for his first heavyweight win. Spann (23-11 MMA, 9-6 UFC) submitted&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":12475,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[570],"tags":[64,63,786,785,14237,1181,85,787],"class_list":["post-12474","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mma","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-fighting","tag-mma","tag-ryan-spann","tag-smoothie-king-center","tag-sports","tag-ufc"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12474","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12474"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12474\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12475"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12474"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12474"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12474"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}