“My manager gets a text that says Arroyo had just been taken to the hospital or something like that. In passing, I was like, I’ll fight Giles, I’ll fight that dude.”
James Krause on Ariel Helwani’s MMA Show
On Monday, following UFC 247 Jones vs. Reyes, James Krause spoke with ESPN’s Ariel Helwani on Helwani’s MMA Show to discuss taking a fight on a day’s notice.
Krause flew into Houston, Texas on Wednesday where UFC 247’s event was being held to originally corner his fighter and teammate, Yousef Zalal. He told Helwani that he was already basically on weight after a long training session with his head coach, Marc Montoya after landing in Houston.
“We trained Wednesday night really hard, and then I trained for six hours total on Thursday so I lost a ton of weight. So I got down, I think I was below 180 (pounds) actually, but I was probably 185 walking around the whole week,” said Krause.
Krause discussed signing a new deal with the UFC before making the fight official for UFC 247.
“They’re (UFC) like you need to go to weigh-ins and I said I’m not going to weigh-ins until you guys figure this out,” said Krause. “Anyway they got it worked out, we worked out the deal,” he added. “I’m very happy with the deal, and I appreciate the UFC for doing that for me.”
Krause lost a close split-decision on Saturday that could have gone either way, but his efforts didn’t go un-noticed. UFC President Dana White said in a post-fight interview with ESPN’s Brett Okomoto that he appreciates Krause for taking the fight and will be cutting him a ‘fat check’ for his efforts for the company.
