Rafael Fiziev can use Justin Gaethje rivalry as motivation for UFC Baku

Rafael Fiziev has a massive test in front of him this weekend in the form of Manuel Torres.

The lightweights lead the UFC’s return to Baku, Azerbaijan, on Saturday in a five-round lightweight contest that headlines a 13-bout Fight Night card.

It’s the organization’s second event in Azerbaijan in as many years after debuting at Baku Crystal Hall 12 months ago.

Fiziev, one of only a handful of fighters on the UFC roster that represent Azerbaijan, was featured in the co-main event in 2025 and now gets the featured spotlight.

The skilled striker with a Muay Thai background scored an upset win in front of the home crowd a year ago when he defeated Ignacio Bahamondes, a touted 155-pound finisher that had earned a highlight first-round stoppage of Torres at the Sphere in 2024. 

Fiziev, 33, has competed in the UFC since 2019 and lingered as a consistent top-10 lightweight contender since 2021 with big wins over Renato Moicano, Bobby “King” Green and former champ Rafael dos Anjos. However, the skilled striker has lost four of his past five appearances and needs to get back in the win column if he hopes to challenge for the lightweight title within the next couple years while still in his fighting prime.

One silver lining to Fiziev’s recent 1-4 stretch is the fact two of those losses were competitive three-round decisions to Justin Gaethje, the UFC’s new undisputed 155-pound champ.

Fiziev first met Gaethje at UFC 286 in 2023 when they fought to a majority decision in a fan-friendly tilt that won Fight of the Night.

They rematched two years later at UFC 313 when Fiziev returned from a long layoff to replace Gaethje’s original opponent, Dan Hooker, on only a couple weeks’ notice. Gaethje won a unanimous 2-1 decision and the duo earned another Fight of the Night bonus for the sequel.

The 30 minutes of total cage time shared with the current champ could prove invaluable this weekend.

Another setback during Fiziev's slump came at the hands of Mateusz Gamrot in 2023 following his first bout with Gaethje, but that one was due to injury when Fiziev blew out his knee midway through a fight he was winning.

There were no asterisks beside Fiziev’s most recent appearance, though, when he was finished cleanly by Mauricio Ruffy earlier this year at UFC 325 in Australia.

Fiziev had his moments in that one, landing punishing body kicks and cutting off the cage effectively, but ultimately got stung by the rangy Brazilian sniper towards the end of the second round and couldn’t recover.

If the veteran isn’t defensively responsible against Torres, he will run the risk of getting finished by another ascending contender a second straight time.

Torres boasts a 5-1 record in the UFC and has developed a reputation as a dangerous finisher. In fact, Torres’ average fight time in the UFC is just 2:29 compared to 12:04 for Fiziev, whose UFC appearances require scorecards 50 per cent of the time.

Torres is 17-3 in mixed martial arts, with 19 of those 20 bouts not extending beyond the first round. He went the distance in his seventh pro bout on the Mexico City regional scene in 2018, claiming a split decision before winning a second fight by submission later that night.

His lone loss in the UFC was that TKO to Bahamondes, but the 31-year-old Mexican got back in the win column with consecutive first-round technical knockout wins over Drew Dober and Grant Dawson last year, both of which earned him Performance of the Night bonuses.

Torres is younger, taller and holds a reach advantage over Fiziev while also carrying the momentum, yet he enters the contest a slight underdog due to his significant disadvantage when it comes to high-level experience and overall strength of schedule.

This weekend’s card also marks Torres’ first UFC main event and he’s travelling roughly 12,000 kilometres into enemy territory against an opponent who’ll carry the Azerbaijan flag to the cage. It’ll be Fiziev’s third UFC Fight Night headline spot since 2022.

Also on the card are a handful of meaningful middleweight matchups.

Shara Magomedov and Michel Pereira meet in a three-round co-main event in one of four 185-pound contests. Magomedov is a dynamic strike-first fighter coming off a Fight of the Night decision win over Canada’s Marc-Andre Barriault 11 months ago, while Pereira won a split decision over Zach Reese in his most recent outing in February.

Ikram Aliskerov looks to extend his win streak to three straight when he faces fellow powerhouse Brunno Ferreira. Aliskerov is 17-2 with his only losses coming to former UFC middleweight champions Khamzat Chimaev and Robert Whittaker. Abus Magomedov will be challenged by Michal Oleksiejczuk’s slick boxing, and Nursulton Ruziboev meets Andrey Pulyaev.

Unbeaten light-heavyweight Abdul-Rakhman Yakhyaev will look to improve to 10-0 when he faces Julius Walker. The only other fighter on the card with an unblemished pro record is the debuting Jefferson Nascimento, a 13-0 LFA welterweight champion coming off a TKO win less than a month ago.

Another notable fighter in action is Daniil Donchenko, the welterweight winner of last year’s The Ultimate Fighter 33 tournament, who looks to make it three in a row in the UFC when he takes on Theodor Berggren in a preliminary bout.

Below is the projected bout order for UFC Fight Night: Fiziev vs. Torres (subject to change)…

MAIN CARD

-- Rafael Fiziev vs. Manuel Torres

-- Shara Magomedov vs. Michel Pereira

-- Nazim Sadykhov vs. Matheus Camilo

-- Asu Almabayev vs. Charles Johnson

-- Ikram Aliskerov vs. Brunno Ferreira

-- Abus Magomedov vs. Michał Oleksiejczuk

PRELIMINARY CARD

-- Farman Hasanov vs. Eric Nolan

-- Abdul-Rakhman Yakhyaev vs. Julius Walker

-- Nursulton Ruziboev vs. Andrey Pulyaev

-- Kaan Ofli vs. Javier Reyes

-- Daniil Donchenko vs. Theodor Berggren

-- Bekzat Almakhan vs. Jean Matsumoto

-- Tahir Abdullayev vs. Jefferson Nascimento