WHEAT RIDGE — Initially, Manny Gamburyan met the move with apprehension. Now, he considers it the “best move I ever made in my life.”
Gamburyan had parlayed his ascension from reality TV star to a regular on the Ultimate Fighting Championship circuit. But after suffering a few lopsided losses, the Armenian-American received a call from UFC matchmaker Joe Silva.
“He said, ‘You’re a good fighter, you have a lot of talent, but these guys are too big for you,’ ” Gamburyan said Tuesday after a training session at Grudge Training Center.
Silva’s recommendation was for Gamburyan to drop to featherweight, which also meant leaving UFC for World Extreme Cagefighting, its sister company for the lighter weight classes.
“It had been hard for me to drop from 160 to 155 (in UFC),” Gamburyan said. “So when Joe Silva called and said, ‘Manny, you need to get to 145,’ I didn’t know if I could do it.”
That call came after his last UFC fight — a loss to Thiago Taveras in January 2009. Five months later, after meeting with a nutritionist to get to 145 — “20 pounds below my walking weight” — Gamburyan defeated John Franchi in his first WEC fight.
He has quickly moved up the rungs to No. 2 in the WEC, and will fight belt-holder Jose Aldo on Thursday night at the 1stBank Center in Broomfield for a shot at the title.
“It doesn’t get any better than this,” the 29-year-old said.
Initially, when asked to make the move from UFC to WEC, nothing seemed worse. Gamburyan, after all, had burst onto the mixed martial-arts scene as a cast member of Ultimate Fighting 5 in 2007, a reality show in which 16 aspiring UFC fighters live together in Las Vegas and compete in a tournament.
Gamburyan advanced to the final round, where he lost to Nathan Diaz but earned big-time admiration from UFC president Dana White. Gamburyan, who said people still recognize him “all the time” from the show, believed his future was in the UFC, so he admittedly had to suck up some pride to drop the weight.
Now, he is fighting Aldo (17-1 all-time MMA record), a Brazilian who is a 4-to-1 favorite, according to Las Vegas oddsmakers.
“I’m a big-time underdog right now, but it is what it is,” said Gamburyan, who joked that his friends could win more money by betting on him this way. “He’s a champion, he’s a phenom, but at the end of the day I don’t care about the odds.”
Aldo said he has intensely studied Gamburyan (13-5), as he does all his opponents.
“He’s a guy who has a good wrestling background and good judo, a tough opponent,” Aldo said.
The co-headliner Thursday will feature Colorado native Donald Cerrone and Jamie Varner in a lightweight matchup that has become noteworthy for the fighters’ mutual disdain.
“I have to back up all the (junk) I’ve been talking,” Cerrone said. “It’s time to walk the walk.”
WEC fight card
7 p.m. Thursday, 1stBank Center in Broomfield
Main card:
Featherweight title bout: Manny Gamburyan (13-5) vs. Jose Aldo (17-1)
Lightweight: *Donald Cerrone (11-3) vs. Jamie Varner (16-3-1)
Bantamweight: Miguel Angel Torres (36-3) vs. Charlie Valencia (12-5)
Featherweight: Chan Sung Jung (10-2) vs. George Roop (10-7-1)
Featherweight: Mark Hominick (18-8) vs. Leonard Garcia (18-5-1)
Undercard:
Lightweight: Jason Reinhard (20-1) vs. Tiequan Zhang (16-0)
Featherweight: Cole Province (6-1) vs. Mike Brown (23-6)
Lightweight: Ed Ratcliff (7-2) vs. Chris Horodecki (14-2)
Featherweight: Diego Nuñes (14-1) vs. *Tyler Toner (11-1)
Bantamweight: Chad George (11-5) vs. Antonio Banuelos (18-6)
Bantamweight: Nick Pace (5-0) vs. Demetrious Johnson (10-1)
Note: All bouts are three rounds, other than featherweight title bout, which is five. Records inclusive of MMA career, not just WEC competition.
* Colorado native
