Chris Padilla Wants Main Card Billing, and He's Not Waiting Politely

Chris Padilla has spent five fights in the UFC without a single loss on his record. Four wins, one draw, and an increasingly firm belief that he's been slotted in the wrong part of the fight card. The Gardena lightweight, 17-6-1 overall with nine knockouts and five submissions, returns Saturday against Nasrat Haqparast at UFC Fight Night: Hernandez vs. Rodrigues in Sacramento — and he's done being quiet about where he thinks he belongs.

Padilla's pitch is blunt: if you don't hold a ranking and you haven't been around longer than him, he doesn't see why he should be fighting below you. He said he plans to keep saying so every time a microphone lands in his hands, insisting he's a main card fighter and a pay-per-view fighter. Not trash talk aimed at opponents or the promotion, he was careful to note — just a fighter making his case in public.

The Draw That Taught Him Something

The last time out, Padilla ran into MarQuel Mederos at UFC 327 and walked away with a majority draw. Mederos, now 11-1-1, went on to book Mason Jones next; the two fighters remain intertwined in a crowded lightweight picture. Padilla says he watched that fight back and drew a specific lesson from it: dominating four minutes of a round isn't enough if a judge catches you eating something clean in the fifth minute.

His fix is pacing. Padilla described himself as a shark in the water against Mederos, all pressure and forward motion, betting the veteran would try to poke and move. He said the tweak isn't about turning down the aggression so much as finding balance — knowing when to ease off the gas just enough to protect the scorecards.

A Fan Fighting His Old Heroes

There's a wrinkle to Padilla's confidence that he's happy to admit. Haqparast is a fighter he used to watch as an 18-year-old fan, back when he was a local competitor with no realistic path to sharing a cage with him. Padilla said the biggest change for him hasn't been athletic — it's the surreal experience of standing next to the names he grew up watching. But he added that the moment he first stepped into the Octagon, he told himself he'd beat everyone in front of him.

The rest of the Sacramento card gives him plenty of company on the way up. Lerryan Douglas (14-5) meets Jamall Emmers coming off a first-round TKO of Julian Erosa, while the main event pits #6 middleweight Anthony Hernandez (15-3) against Gregory Rodrigues, with Hernandez looking to rebound from a third-round KO loss to Sean Strickland.

Prelims start at 5pm ET, with the main card at 8pm ET on Paramount+ from the Golden 1 Center. Padilla says he'll perform, then repeat his message when they hand him the mic. Whether the matchmakers agree is the argument he's trying to win — one Haqparast fight at a time.