Hunkered down in his Las Vegas hotel room since Tuesday, Anthony Birchak has turned his bathroom into a personal sauna.
Birchak closes the door behind him, fills up the bathtub with water just hot enough for him to bear, dashes in some Epsom salts for stress reduction and soaks his body neck-high until he feels it’s necessary to get out. Once Birchak steps out of the tub, he wraps himself in a blanket and sweats for an additional 25 minutes.
It’s part of his plan to cut weight. So is his new diet of baby food and distilled water. The baby food provides enough nutritional value to prevent hunger but keep the body light, and distilled water flushes out potential toxins in the body.
Birchak’s rituals allow him to shed two pounds per day. Saturday, he’ll take part in his first Ultimate Fighting Championship bout since 2016 at 135 pounds.
Birchak, who fights out of 10th Planet jiujitsu gym near Speedway Boulevard and Swan Road, will face Las Vegas’ Gustavo Lopez in UFC Fight Night at the UFC Apex Center Saturday night. The man they call “El Toro” replaces Felipe Colares, who was scratched from the card following a positive COVID-19 test. The bantamweight bout is a part of the lead-up to a main card headlined by Thiago Santos and Glover Teixera. The fights will be streamed on ESPN+.
“I got a call (Tuesday) at lunchtime and they were like, ‘Hey get on a plane,’” Birchak said. “‘For what?’ ‘You’re in. They asked for you specifically by name.’ I go, ‘Alright, cool.’”
Hours later, Birchak, 34, touched down in Las Vegas and immediately began his pre-fight preparation in order to make weight.
Saturday’s fight will be the fifth time Birchak has fought in the UFC. He’s 2-2 there, having won his last UFC fight over Dileno Lopes by split decision four years ago. Birchak’s other win in an octagon was in 2015, when he knocked out Joe Soto in 2015. His two losses happened via submission against Ian Entwistle, and by a knockout punch from Thomas Almeida.
Birchak, who is 16-6 as a professional MMA fighter, took the long way back to the UFC. Nine months after his last UFC fight, Birchak fought overseas in Japan’s “Rizin Fighting Federation,” where he lost his only three matches. Stress and anxiety consumed Birchak. Even though he was in the prime of his career, he questioned his purpose.
Upon returning to Tucson in 2018, the former Sahuarita High School wrestler taught jiujitsu and secured fights, even on short notice. In Birchak’s last three fights, including two in Combate Americas, the Tucsonan is 3-0 with three knockouts.
Birchak remained one phone call away from the UFC. He and others were part of a pool of fighters that could be summoned at a moment’s notice to replace someone who had suffered an injury — or, in Colares’ case, tested positive for COVID-19.
For four months, a UFC representative told Birchak to be prepared for a return. His chance finally came Tuesday.
“This has been a wild ride. Since the second week of June, every single week I’ve gotten the phone call on Monday that I was going to fight in the UFC on Saturday,” Birchak said. “And every single week on Thursday, I got another call saying, ‘Uh, we went with someone else.’”
It took a mental toll on Birchak to the point where he considered retiring two weeks ago. The pandemic briefly shut down his gym and tested his commitment.
“But I stayed persistent and I trained every damn day,” Birchak said. “It was hard to stay the course. Every once in a while, there’d be a weekend where I would fall and have a few beers then hit it hard on Monday because I got the phone call.”
Birchak said his “stupid hope” kept him going.
“I’ve always had that mentality that I’m just one phone call away — one positive COVID test away,” he said. “It’s one injury away from getting me back in. I’m not done. I didn’t do nearly what I’m capable of in my first run in the UFC. Now I’m a lot more mature.”
He knows, too, that few get the opportunity to fight.
“When I finally put the pen to paper and I put ‘Anthony Birchak’ on my bout agreement on (Nov. 3, 2020), I set the pen down and I cried,” said Birchak. “I’ve had like four cry sessions since I’ve been up here just thinking about how far I’ve come.
“The emotions have been overwhelming, because it’s like, ‘(expletive), finally. We’re back in, what do we do now?’ All those times I thought about retiring and how easy it was for me to go, ‘You know what? I’ve done some pretty cool stuff. I think I’m going to let these young bucks on my team have at it, and foster the growth of the next superstar out of Tucson.’ That’s what I was looking at.”
Birchak said his students helped fuel his return. He tells them: “Stay ready so you don’t gotta get ready.”
Birchak’s return to “the show” comes against Lopez, who has an 11-5 record as a worldwide MMA fighter. Lopez trains at the 10th Planet gym in Las Vegas, but fights for Xtreme Couture. Birchak and Lopez have trained and sparred “at least a hundred times” over their professional fighting careers, he said. Birchak called Saturday’s fight a “glorified sparring match that one of us is trying to win.”
Lopez and Birchak share the same 10th Planet coaches, and they have sided with Lopez. Birchak will bring two of his personal muay thai coaches.
“It’s not the ideal situation to come back to the UFC and fight my friend,” Birchak said. “But he called me and said, ‘Let’s talk real quick.’ I said, ‘OK.’ He told me, ‘Look, I know what you’ve been going through trying to get back into the show.
“With my opponent falling out, I think this is a great time and opportunity so I don’t go without a fight, and you can get back in so all of your hard work isn’t for nothing. It’s all love and respect and I love you. Let’s go put on a great show and have a beer afterwards.’
“I broke down crying, because there’s no reason for him to want to say yes, because he’s coming off a loss and I’m a bad matchup for anybody. For him to be so selfless and go, ‘Look, it is what it is. If we were racers, we would race, but we do this fight thing.’ I respect him so much for taking me as an opponent and getting me back into the biggest show in the world. I’m indebted to him, and it’s such a beautiful thing for him to do that.”
Should Birchak win, the UFC could come calling again.
“If I get my foot in the door, 2021 is going to be beautiful,” Birchak said. “It’s going to remind people that I’m one of the top 50 bantamweight fighters in the world.”
