Nick Hrabec has been a familiar face inside the Unified MMA cage and he now finds himself in the most prominent spot of his career.
The step from regular-card fighter to co-main event billing is the promotion's way of saying a fighter has graduated from 'reliable action guy' to 'draw' — Hrabec has been a Unified MMA regular since his amateur days, and this spot is as much a recognition of eleven previous cages for the promotion as it is a new challenge.
Edmonton, Alta.’s Hrabec (8-5) will battle Canadian MMA veteran Tim Smith (16-12) in the co-main event of Unified MMA 49 on Saturday night in Edmonton. The bout will be contested at 165 pounds.
Hrabec, 28, will step into the Unified MMA cage for the twelfth time in his career and hopes to follow the path of one of his long-time coaches, friends and training partners.
A spot like this is where careers get made on the regional circuit — a strong performance against a 16-fight veteran in front of the hometown Edmonton crowd is exactly the kind of night that turns a card regular into a title contender, and Hrabec knows it.
Twelve Unified appearances by age 28 is the kind of promotion-specific loyalty that makes a fighter the heart of a regional roster — Edmonton has watched Hrabec grow from a teenager in the amateur ranks into a co-main event professional on the same stages where he used to sit in the crowd.
“If I can go out and make a good performance, a stellar performance, I think that puts me up there for fighting for a title for Unified,” said Hrabec in an interview with MMA Empire.
“I know Shane (Campbell) has it; I would never fight Shane. That’s my OG, that’s my boy. But that guy’s just too good to be fighting on the local scene. He should be getting signed to the UFC after his fight. My boy Shane’s going to handle business, get that title and I’m sure he’ll get called up to the UFC. I’m sure he would love to pass the torch, the 155 belt, my way and let me fight for it against someone.”
With the bout being in the co-main event slot, this will be Hrabec’s first time in his career in a prominent spot on the card, including the card being featured on UFC Fight Pass.
He said this is going to be a perfect opportunity to show people what he’s really all about.
“I think the exposure’s going to be huge for me. I think people are really going to see what I’m capable of. I feel like still no one has seen what I’m capable of. I feel like they’ve only seen 20 per cent of me,” said Hrabec.
“I feel like I’m really going to showcase what I have to bring to the table, that I’m an up-and-comer and the next biggest thing coming out of Edmonton.”
At the time Hrabec was making his amateur debut back in 2012, Smith had just completed his nineteenth professional fight.
The timeline gap is the kind of stat that puts the fight in perspective — Smith was nineteen professional bouts deep when Hrabec was making his amateur debut, which makes Saturday night less a test of experience and more a test of whether a prospect's ceiling can overcome a veteran's floor.
Hrabec said Smith is someone he watched growing up and said it’s going to be an honour to share the cage with him.
“I think the first Unified event I went and watched he was fighting and I was literally a kid. I was literally 18 years old when I saw him fight. I was only just starting to train,” said Hrabec.
“It’s pretty cool that I get to fight him. He’s a veteran of the game, I got nothing but respect for the guy, and we’re both from Edmonton, so I think this is a fan favourite. I think this is the people’s main event.”
Hrabec has stood across the cage from the likes of Garret Nybakken and Behrang Yousefi so far in his career, but he said Smith is likely going to be his toughest test to date.
Toughest-test declarations are easy to make and harder to back up, but the resume supports this one — Nybakken and Yousefi are credible regional names, and Smith at 16-12 with a decade-plus of experience is a different category of problem entirely.
But despite the tall task ahead of him, Hrabec feels he will also have his best showing to date.
“He’s fought so many guys, he’s an OG, he has a lot of experience and this is for sure my toughest test,” said Hrabec.
“But I think this is going to be my best performance to date. I’m the up-and-comer, I’m going to be the next big thing coming out of Edmonton, so I’m excited to show that on Saturday.”
The best-performance prediction is the right kind of confidence for this spot — Hrabec is betting that the biggest stage of his career is exactly when his preparation and upside finally show up together, and fighters who've been building toward a moment like this tend to either rise to it or get exposed by it.
Hrabec’s shoutouts
“My coaches and training partners at Wolfhouse and Shaved Bears MMA, and my strength and conditioning coach, Mike.” Follow Hrabec on social media: FACEBOOK, INSTAGRAM
