TUF 23 winner Andrew Sanchez returns to the cage this weekend for one of the most unique nights of fighting in recent memory.

The Roman Theatre in Amman, Jordan is almost 2,000 years old and will play host to some of the biggest celebrities from the world of sport on Friday night for DF Uncaged. Mike Tyson will be cageside, as will stars such as Hasbulla and soccer icon Ronaldinho.

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Sanchez, who defeated Khalil Rountree Jr to win The Ultimate Fighter a decade ago, will face Mikhail Rogozin in one of the key fights of the night. It will mark his return to competition at the age of 38 after flirting with retirement following his August 2025 loss to Impa Kasanganay in PFL.

Andrew Sanchez opens up about DF Uncaged showdown

When he suffered his most recent defeat, Andrew Sanchez was unsure if he would return to action at all. He turned 38 this year, and while he remained training it remained to be seen what was left to do in the cage.

Then, he bumped into Javier Mendez at UFC 330 – the legendary trainer of Khabib Nurmagomedov, Luke Rockhold and Daniel Cormier to name a few. He was putting together a show at a legendary venue in Jordan, and Sanchez decided he had to give it a try.

“I’ve retired, like, three times and you get pulled back in,” he joked during an exclusive chat with Bloody Elbow. “I had a UFC run, PFL run and then I was like ‘okay, I’m getting a little old, time to hang it up here, I think’.

“But then I’ve been getting into coaching and working with Neil Magny on his wrestling. There was Neil’s last fight [a stunning knockout of Ramiz Brahimaj] where I ran into Javier Mendez. I used to train at AKA and he was like ‘oh I’m working with this new promotion and you’d be perfect, want to do it?’

“I said ‘maybe’ and looked into the promotion, it’s just one hell of an adventure that I couldn’t turn down. We’re doing it at the Roman Theatre, I’ve never been to that part of the world and the people putting it on, Javier and his son Jeremy are people I trust.

“Nobody is trying to screw me over from a matchmaking perspective… They asked for me, I agreed. When you get older and you’ve been through the UFC etc, some organizations want to try and use you to build up other fighters.

“I kind of felt like that was happening so it’s good to be with an organization I can trust.”