With Billy Quarantillo and Gavin Tucker both calling each other out on numerous occasions, Quarantillo wanted to make sure the fight happened.
The pair were originally scheduled to face off at UFC on ESPN+ 31 in April, but the fight was canceled due to the ongoing coronavirus outbreak.
Both men have picked up victories since then, with Quarantillo (15-2 MMA, 3-0 UFC) defeating Spike Carlyle and stopping Kyle Nelson, and Tucker (12-1 MMA, 3-1 UFC) submitting Justin Jaynes.
With Tucker calling him out as recently as October, Quarantillo is as motivated as ever to settle their unfinished business, and he will get the opportunity to do just that on Saturday when they finally square off at UFC 256.
“I think it’s a really good stylistic matchup for me,” Quarantillo told MMA Junkie. “What’s really intriguing is that he’s never been finished before, so I look at that as a huge opportunity for me to go out and finish him. But not only was I intrigued to fight him before April, but after he won his fight – we didn’t have a contract – I was scheduled to fight Kyle (Nelson) and he actually called me out after, so that was really motivating to me and then right away I was like, ‘Oh yeah. Of course! We gotta fight now!’
“If you call me out at this point in my career, we’re definitely gonna fight. So him basically calling me out after was all the motivation I needed. I thought it was a good matchup in April. Basically, if I fought Kyle and they offered me someone else and Gavin didn’t say anything, I would have been fine fighting someone else. But since he mentioned me, and I knew he still wanted the fight, I didn’t want to let him off the hook and this is definitely a matchup I really like.”
After a failed stint on “The Ultimate Fighter” in 2015, Quarantillo has been on a tear. Winner of his past eight, Quarantillo is now looking to close out 2020 by picking up his fourth win in the calendar year.
After multiple callouts, UFC 256’s Billy Quarantillo happy to finally face Gavin Tucker