Justin Willis wants a fight with Tai Tuivasa to determine who leaves the UFC.
After a recent “miscommunication” between him and the UFC which questioned whether he was even still on the roster, UFC heavyweight Justin Willis has called for a loser-leaves-UFC fight with Tai Tuivasa.
Willis (8-2) disappeared from the heavyweight rankings late last month, raising alarm bells over his future. However “Big Pretty” said the situation was a mishap and everything has now worked out, which is why he is calling for a fight with Tuivasa.
“We’re fighting for a contract,” Willis told MMA Junkie on Wednesday. “Whoever loses gets cut. Don’t be a (expletive), homie. What side?
“Pretty has a simple question for you,” he said of Tuivasa. “Yes or no, do you want to fight?”
Before his fight with Mark Hunt last year at UFC Adelaide, Willis got into an altercation with Tuivasa at the ceremonial weigh-ins. Willis responded to an in-cage callout from Tuivasa by saying the Australian was “concussed” after a TKO loss to Junior Dos Santos.
“I’m going to catch up with him whenever I catch up with him,” Tuivasa told Submission Radio in April. “At the end of the day, he’s killing his own career, I think, talking (expletive) and then coming out and being (expletive). He needs to be slapped. I’m going to pull his pants down and play with his bum.”
It does still remain to be seen whether Willis has actually been released already or not. UFC president Dana White didn’t dispute the fact when asked about it before UFC 238.
Willis suffered his first ever UFC defeat in his last fight to Curtis Blaydes by a one-sided unanimous decision. Meanwhile, Tuivasa dropped a unanimous decision to Blagoy Ivanov this past weekend at UFC 238.