{"id":296937,"date":"2025-11-20T11:40:10","date_gmt":"2025-11-20T11:40:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/296937\/"},"modified":"2025-11-20T11:40:10","modified_gmt":"2025-11-20T11:40:10","slug":"waldo-cortes-acosta-saves-ufc-qatar-heavyweight-fight-after-last-second-serghei-spivac-withdrawal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/296937\/","title":{"rendered":"Waldo Cortes-Acosta saves UFC Qatar Heavyweight fight after last-second Serghei Spivac withdrawal"},"content":{"rendered":"

Less than three days away from showtime, a pivotal UFC Qatar<\/a> matchup has been shaken up.<\/p>\n

Per a first report from ESPN Deportes\u2019 Carlos Contreras Legaspi<\/a>, Serghei Spivac has withdrawn from his planned main card matchup versus Shamil Gaziev. Fortunately, the promotion has already found a replacement for him in Wald0 Cortes-Acosta, an even higher ranked fighter. Currently, no reason has been provided for Spivac\u2019s withdrawal.<\/p>\n

Despite the change, this is still a solid Heavyweight scrap. Cortes-Acosta will be competing for the fifth time in 2025, which is highly unusual especially among the big men. He\u2019s won three of his last four against a quality class of competition, most recently knocking out Ante Delija<\/a> after suffering a nasty eye poke<\/a>. Currently ranked at No. 6<\/a>, \u201cSalsa Boy\u201d is putting a lot on the line by traveling halfway across the world with no training camp.<\/p>\n

On the bright side, he doesn\u2019t have to cut weight!<\/p>\n

As for Gaziev, his opportunity just grew larger. The 35-year-old Russian won two in a row<\/a> and was looking to break into the Top 10<\/a> originally, but now he could jump all the way up Cortes-Acosta\u2019s position with an impressive showing. 3-1 in the UFC overall, the knockout artist could fully rebound from his Jairzinho Rozenstruik defeat with a victory on Saturday night (Nov. 22, 2025). Given the short-notice circumstances, who takes home the victory?<\/p>\n

To see who else is fighting at UFC Qatar click here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Less than three days away from showtime, a pivotal UFC Qatar matchup has been shaken up. Per a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":296938,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[570],"tags":[64,63,786,40762,785,85,1396],"class_list":{"0":"post-296937","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mma","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-fighting","11":"tag-latest-ufc-mma-news","12":"tag-mma","13":"tag-sports","14":"tag-ufc-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/296937","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=296937"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/296937\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/296938"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=296937"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=296937"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=296937"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}