Rafael dos Anjos ‘passed out in the bathtub’ prior to UFC title fight with Eddie Alvarez

Joe Rogan wasn’t kidding.

Rafael dos Anjos did pass out for three minutes prior to his lightweight championship showdown with Eddie Alvarez at UFC Fight Night 90.

Dos Anjos, who lost the title to Alvarez in the main event, talked about his brutal weight cut in Las Vegas and how his coaches almost called the emergency services after he had passed out.

“I passed out in the bathtub, in the hot tub. I was out for like almost three minutes,” dos Anjos told Ariel Helwani in a recent edition of The MMA Hour (h/t Guilherme Cruz of MMA Fighting). “My coaches were about to call 911 and cancel the fight because I was out on my bed, and they put some ice on my chest, and then I woke up and stayed on my bed for one hour.”

Dos Anjos says he thought about cancelling the fight but eventually made weight and showed up on the night, losing via first round TKO.

“We thought about cancelling the fight but I’m a fighter, I don’t wanna upset the fans,” dos Anjos said. “But thinking back right now, I shouldn’t make that fight because today guys all the time kind of don’t fight because they have weight problems. Khabib (Nurmagomedov), the other day, he didn’t make the fight with (Tony) Ferguson because he had some issues, but it’s fine. That’s past. Now a new division, a new life.”

After suffering two back-to-back losses to Alvarez and Tony Ferguson, the 32-year-old dos Anjos made the decision to move to up to 170 lbs. and will take on Tarec Saffiedine in his welterweight debut at UFC Fight Night 111.

The event is headlined by a women’s bantamweight clash between Holly Holm and Bethe Correia and will take place on June 17 at Singapore Indoor Stadium in Kallang, Singapore.