Las Vegas — Preston LaGrange has arrived in the UFC care of a knockout of Nell Ariano on the Contender Series, where he was a 4-1 underdog, making a long-awaited goal become reality.
“I always knew it was going to happen, it’s just finally for real,” LaGrange (7-1) exclaimed following the fight, speaking with media outlets including Cageside Press.
While he may have had faith he’d arrive here some day, the path taken was a little different. LaGrange got his DWCS opportunity on short notice, and up a weight class.
“I knew exactly two weeks before the fight, is when I found out,” he explained backstage at the Meta Apex. When his manager called to tell him a Contender Series opportunity had come up, but was at light heavyweight, LaGrange didn’t hesitate. “I was like ‘I’m in. Count me in. I’m only 200lbs right now, but count me in.’”
The discrepancy in weight, which saw LaGrange weighing in at 199.5lbs with his socks on, was never a concern for the middleweight. Who, as it happened, was due to fight for LFA just a few weeks from now.
“I don’t think it [the weight] matters that much. Ten, twenty pounds doesn’t really make a huge difference in MMA,” LaGrange opined. “At the end of the day, it’s going to come down to skill versus skill.”
What could make a difference moving forward is fight camp. LaGrange has been taking short-notice fights for a while now. So when it comes to his debut, although “I’ll fight whenever,” LaGrange added that “I’d love to get a full camp in. I feel like it’s been a little bit now. I feel like this is all short notice, and the LFA thing. It’d be cool to get a full camp in, but I don’t need a full camp. I’m always training, I’m ready to go year-round.”
Earlier in 2026, Preston LaGrange was himself knocked out by Brandon Holmes. Yet while LaGrange is now in the UFC, Holmes lost his second Contender Series bout earlier this year, and is not.
“It was pretty surreal. Before that loss, I was a regional champ back in Iowa. And I went into that loss I took earlier in the year, and I think that loss taught me a lot,” he said of the setback, and what he took from it. “Just showed me hey, it’s alright to lose. You’re going to learn from this. And I learned a lot from it.”
LaGrange didn’t want to sit on the loss either, and got right back to work. “If I had sat on a loss, I would have just been thinking about it too much. I wanted to get back in there right away.”
Watch the full Dana White’s Contender Series Season 10, Week 9 post-fight press conference with Preston LaGrange above.