UFC Fight Night 98's Ricardo Lamas gives his side of UFC Fight Night 97 cancellation and fallout

UFC featherweight Ricardo Lamas was packing up his car for the trip from his training camp in Florida to his native Chicago when he opened his Twitter app.

It was his last day of training camp for a UFC Fight Night 97 main event against UFC Hall of Famer B.J. Penn. A flight to the Philippines awaited him, and if all went well, a big boost in career standing.

Then he started seeing his opponent’s name on his timeline. According to social media, he was about to go home empty-handed.

“We got on the phone with (UFC matchmaker) Sean (Shelby), and it started crumbling from there,” Lamas (16-5 MMA, 7-3 UFC), who meets Charles Oliveira (21-6 MMA, 9-6 UFC) at UFC Fight Night 98, today told MMAjunkie Radio.

First Penn (16-10-2 MMA, 12-9-2 UFC) was officially out, courtesy of a rib injury. Then the whole show was canceled, courtesy of Penn’s absence and reportedly low ticket sales. In other words, bad to worse.

“At one point, I honestly didn’t know if I was going to be able to get a fight,” Lamas said.

The UFC tried two different options to replace Penn, including Bryan Caraway, who previously detailed his efforts to save the show. Lamas backed the bantamweight’s possible inclusion and said “of course” he would have taken the bout. But alas, failed negotiations – and the other unnamed opponent’s unavailability – made a last-minute booking impossible.

For Lamas, the bother wasn’t just the fact that he’d lost out on a chance to face Penn, a fighter who to this day carries a superhuman aura with his colleagues. It was that Christmas was coming up.

“This is how I earn a living,” he said. “So if I don’t fight, I don’t make money.”

Contrary to previous reports, the fighters on the scratched show didn’t get their show purses, according to MMAjunkie’s John Morgan. Lamas said he received “a little compensation that basically paid for the expenses of the camp.”

“It’s something they didn’t have to do,” Lamas said. “It’s in the contract that if the show gets canceled, they don’t have to pay us anything.”

Of course, he was upset that he lost out on a full payday. But maybe not as upset as UFC heavyweight Derrick Lewis, who’d flown all the way to the Philippines to prepare for a bout with Marcin Tybura and half-threatened to show up at UFC President Dana White’s door.

“I would have been the little guy taking (expletive) behind Derrick’s back,” Lamas joked. “C’mon Derrick, yeah!”

Lewis probably put off the trip when he got another fight. And as it turned out, so did Lamas, who got another offer against Oliveira, whom he meets on the FS1-televised main card following early prelims on UFC Fight Pass. The event takes place at Mexico City Arena in Mexico City, Mexico.

“If they didn’t give me a fight, I’d be pissed I didn’t get my show money,” Lamas said. “But it worked out, and I’m happy to be fighting.”

The rescheduled bout comes with an additional demand in the form of the event’s 7,380-foot elevation, which has proved a capable foe in high-profile fights. Lamas said he’s ready to breathe a little harder if it means staying active.

“I’ve fought at higher altitudes against guys who trained at altitude, and I beat them,” he said. “I’ve been training my butt off, and this has been a long camp, and I’m ready to get in there and do this.”

At No. 6 in the USA TODAY Sports/MMAjunkie MMA featherweight rankings, Lamas might even benefit more from fighting No. 10 Oliveira. But if not, the headache of the past month has given him a little bit more motivation to win the fight.

“I always look for the finish,” Lamas said. “I look to go in there and break him, and I think it’s something that can definitely be done. I’ve got a lot of pent-up aggression from the past three months, and I’m looking to let it go.”

For more on UFC Fight Night 98, check out the UFC Rumors section of MMAjunkie.