Rakic Hits 107.5 kg, Medic Closes UFC Belgrade Weigh-In
The ceremonial weigh-in for UFC Belgrade filled the Arena a day before fight night: Rakic at 107.5 kilograms, Nikolic hunting for his shorter rival, Medic last out with a flag.
Aleksandar Rakic pulled off his shirt at the foot of the stairs, crossed himself, then stepped onto the scale and posted 107.5 kilograms. The crowd inside Belgrade Arena answered with applause. A few seconds, not a word spoken, and it was one of the loudest moments of the night.
The ceremonial weigh-in in front of an audience took place on Friday, July 31, at Belgrade Arena, one day before fight night. The competitive part of the job had been settled hours earlier. All 28 fighters made the official morning scale, as we reported, and the 14-fight card was left untouched. The evening measured something else entirely: how a fighter walks out, who stares at whom, and who blinks first.
The order the home fighters walked out in
The running order was built so the two biggest names came last:
- Borislav Nikolic
- Marina Spasic
- Nina Nikolija Milosevic
- Milos Janicic
- Vlasto Cepo
- Dusko Todorovic
- Aleksandar Rakic
- Uros Medic
Marina Spasic and Nina Nikolija Milosevic followed Nikolic immediately, in the first stretch of the home block. Dusko Todorovic came out draped in the Serbian tricolour ahead of his bout with Switzerland’s Robert Valentin. Milos Janicic offered his hand to Noa Gunjon once the staredown was over, and that one stayed a handshake. Rakic carried his 107.5 kilograms into a heavyweight bout with Marcin Tybura.
Why the Nikolic and Vologdin staredown owned the room
The face-off everyone talked about belonged to Borislav Nikolic and Mark Vologdin. Nikolic stands 175 centimetres, Vologdin 160, a full 15 centimetres apart, and nobody needed a tape measure to see it on stage. Nikolic played it up, glancing around as if he could not find his opponent at all. The hall laughed with him.
The joke had a ceiling. UFC president Dana White stepped between the two men to keep the contact off the stage a day early. That was not the only flashpoint of the evening, with organisers also pulling Vlasto Cepo and Gilbert Urbina apart.
One gesture did not return. Denis Buzukja, who had flashed a double-headed eagle at the official morning weigh-in, left it out of the ceremonial version.
Medic last, flag up, no incident
Uros Medic closed the show, carrying a large Serbian flag, and the crowd chanted his name while he stood on the scale. His face-off with Daniel Rodriguez ran long. The two held the stare without speaking, and nothing tipped over.
That ended the programme and started the wait. Medic and Rodriguez are scheduled to begin no earlier than 9.30 p.m. on Saturday, closing a 14-fight bill.
What the weigh-in tells you about Saturday
The ceremonial part changes nothing on paper, but it leaves one number worth keeping. Not a single home fighter was still fighting the scale in the final hours, because the morning weigh-in went clean for all eight of them. Rakic walks into his bout at 107.5 kilograms without a drain that would empty him, and in the heavyweight division that reads as an edge more often than a footnote.
The rest was a voice test. Nikolic clearly enjoys the psychological end of the job, Cepo needs very little to find a confrontation, and Medic took the room with a flag and a stare rather than a speech. On Saturday all of it gets measured a different way.
