Dennis Bermudez's face instantly turned ashen. He jabbed a finger at DC and began loudly denying everything, his voice cracking with emotion. The scene at the press conference teetered on chaos. Cameras flashed like lightning bolts; the hall buzzed like a disturbed hornet's nest.
Dana White, ever the ringmaster, smiled and raised her hand for calm. The noise gradually subsided. She then turned her gaze to the man at the center of the storm—the man who had been the quiet axis around which all this tension now spun.
"Yogan," she said, her voice cutting through the air, "what do you have to say about Dennis's comments—that your takedown defense is inadequate, and that he plans to wrestle you into the ground?"
Every camera swiveled to him. Every microphone pointed his way. The hall fell into a silence so sharp it felt like glass.
Yogan slowly took the microphone. He did not even glance at Dennis Bermudez; his dark eyes were as still as deep water, reflecting nothing.
"I respect Mr. Dennis Bermudez's wrestling background," he said evenly, his voice quiet yet carrying clearly through the speakers, "and I also respect the effort he has put into this fight."
He paused, collecting his thoughts. "But I think there's a conceptual misunderstanding here."
The reporters leaned forward. Dennis shifted in his seat.
"MMA," Yogan continued, "is not a wrestling match. It's not a boxing match either. It's like a complex math problem. You have to use every formula you've mastered to solve your opponent. Power. Speed. Timing. Distance. Angles. These are all variables."
Finally, he turned his gaze directly on Dennis Bermudez—a look like a knife sliding out of its sheath. "Mr. Dennis Bermudez is obsessed with using 'wrestling' as the only formula to solve my problem. I can't wait to see the look on his face on fight night when he realizes this formula isn't working."
There was no profanity, no shouting. Yet the words sliced sharper than any insult. They framed Dennis's entire tactical philosophy as one-dimensional, brute-force, and outdated.
Dennis's face shifted from green to pale. He wanted to speak, but he could sense a logical wall had been built around him—a fortress he could not breach with words. He roared instead, "It's easy to say! When the time comes, don't run away! I'll show you what absolute power is!"
Yogan simply smiled faintly, set the microphone down, and said nothing more.
---
That night—after the flashbulbs, after the noise—was the darkest and longest night of Yogan's entire preparation. The final stage of dehydration had begun.
Nutritionist Mary filled the hotel bathtub with scalding water, then poured in two giant bags of Epsom salts. Magnesium sulfate would seep through the pores, dragging water out of his body like a merciless tide.
Yogan lowered his weakened body into the bitter bath. At first, he could bear it. But after a few minutes the pain began—tiny, invisible needles stabbing every inch of his skin. He could feel the water in his cells fleeing.
His heart thudded like a war drum. His eardrums hummed. The ceiling lights blurred and swirled into rings of white. Fifteen minutes felt like a century.
When he rose, he swayed on his feet. Javier and DC had to steady him on either side. In that short quarter hour, he had lost nearly two more kilos.
But the ordeal wasn't over. They zipped him into an airtight sauna suit and put him through low-intensity cardio—slow walking, gentle pedaling on a stationary bike. Sweat poured from every pore like a waterfall. The suit ballooned with trapped liquid.
His lips cracked like desert earth. His throat burned as if someone had poured smoke down it. Severe dehydration brought hallucinations: he could smell grilled steak, see steaming white rice, hear the fizz of ice-cold Coke poured into a glass—the music of heaven.
He knew it was all fake, his brain's desperate conjuring. He clenched his teeth, narrowed his awareness to his breathing, and silently repeated his goal:
Champion… I want to be a champion… What is this pain compared to failure in the Octagon? Think of that fighter who'd rather be knocked out than give up. What's the pain I've suffered compared to that?
Team Yogan stayed with him. Javier wiped his face with a damp towel. DC cracked bad jokes, trying to distract him. Mary weighed him every half hour, recording even the slightest change in numbers like a scientist monitoring a fragile experiment.
Yogan hardly closed his eyes all night. He walked through a private Hell.
---
The next afternoon, the public weigh-in was held at a downtown Austin theater.
As Yogan walked from backstage to the front, flanked by Team Yogan, every step felt like treading on cotton. He was light as ash, a shell of a man stripped of moisture—only muscle, bone, and a thin layer of skin. His cheeks were hollow, his eye sockets dark, like a patient from a war hospital.
The theater was packed. Deafening music and cheers reached his ears like noise from another planet.
Finally, it was his turn. He stripped off his sweatpants, wearing only UFC shorts, and stepped onto the cold, fateful scale. All lights converged on him. Everyone held their breath.
The numbers flickered: 150… 148… 147… then stopped.
146.0.
Not a pound more, not a pound less—exactly at the Featherweight limit.
"ONE HUNDRED AND FORTY-SIX POUNDS!" boomed the announcer.
Team Yogan exhaled in unison. DC raised his fist. Mary's tense expression softened into relief.
Yogan himself didn't even have the strength to celebrate. He stepped down and accepted the bottle of electrolyte recovery drink Mary thrust into his hands.
The first swallow was bliss—cold, sweet liquid sliding down his parched throat, seeping into his exhausted stomach. Every cell screamed with joy, like rain after a drought. He drained the liter in seconds. Strength trickled back. His face was still pale, but his eyes sharpened.
---
He walked to the center of the stage and waited for his opponent.
Dennis Bermudez also made weight easily. He looked fresh, confident, predatory. He strode up, stopping less than a meter away.
He tried to overpower Yogan with aura—breathing heavily through his nose, eyes wide, muttering low, ugly threats:
"You're done, kid. You're a ghost. Tomorrow night I'll show you you don't belong here."
Yogan didn't respond. He let Dennis's spit land on his face, his eyes bottomless like two ancient wells—no anger, no tension, no fear.
That extreme calmness disturbed Dennis more than any insult. His roars struck cotton and vanished. Meanwhile Yogan's still gaze sliced through him, layer by layer, as though exposing him from the inside out.
Dana White had to step in, forcing them apart. Dennis kept shouting over her shoulder, fists shaking.
Yogan turned to the cameras below the stage, raised his right hand, and made a small cutting gesture with his joined index and middle fingers. He didn't speak. He didn't need to.
Everyone understood.
A storm was coming.
And he was the calm, deadly eye of that storm.
---
Fight night. Frank Erwin Center, downtown Austin. Nearly twenty thousand spectators roared, a living sound wave tearing at the arena roof. Spotlights cut through the dark like searchlights. Beer, popcorn, adrenaline—this was the modern gladiator pit.
Backstage, silence reigned.
Yogan sat shirtless on a bench, eyes half closed, breathing slow and even. Thirty hours of scientific rehydration and nutrition had transformed his body from a wrinkled shell into a coiled predator. Muscles full, skin stretched tight over explosive power. His weight had quietly climbed back to 180 pounds. In the Octagon, he would enjoy a clear size advantage.
Coach Javier knelt before him, wrapping his hands in bandages with reverence, turning his fists into warhammers. He spoke no tactics; everything had been drilled thousands of times.
DC stood at the door, blocking any media trying to sneak in for a last-minute quote. Occasionally he glanced at Yogan, eyes filled with confidence and pride.
The medical team entered, checked Yogan's vitals, signed off on his bandages. Everything was precise, silent, ordered.
"Yogan," Javier said at last, securing the final tape. He looked his student in the eyes. "Remember, you are the reef. No matter how wild the waves, stand there. Let them crash."
Yogan opened his eyes. No flicker in the pupils. He clenched his fists—felt the familiar power—and nodded.
"It's time!" a UFC employee called from the door.
He rose and walked down the dark tunnel toward the Octagon, Team Yogan surrounding him like a moving fortress.
The entrance music—"Bleeding Out"—blasted. The crowd's roar surged to its peak. On the big screen, highlights of Yogan's lightning strikes and surgical knockouts flickered. He walked slowly toward the light. The ground trembled under his feet. Thousands screamed "Flash!"—his nickname—until the air quivered.
He put aside all distractions. In his perception, the world had shrunk to the sacred, merciless Octagon fenced with barbed wire.
Inside, Dennis Bermudez paced like a caged beast, pounding his chest, growling. A primal desire to destroy everything burned in his eyes.
Referee Herb Dean called them to the center. Sweat, heat, tension—Yogan could feel Dennis's aura pressing against him.
But inside his mind: still water.
He returned to his corner. Javier smeared Vaseline on his face. "Enjoy the process," were the last words he heard.
"ARE YOU READY?!"
"ARE YOU READY?!"
"LET'S GET STARTED!"
The bell rang. Round one.
Dennis Bermudez came charging forward like a cannonball fired from a barrel. His intention was obvious: impose his proudest weapon—wrestling—immediately, drag Yogan into his rhythm before the striker could find his range.
And in that split second, the Octagon became the stage for everything Yogan had endured: the hunger, the salt baths, the hallucinations, the endless drills of the high kick and the counter-spear.
The storm had arrived.
And the eye of the storm was ready.
---