Teddy Holder was 15 minutes away from going to the arena that would host his recent fight when he received a call from his promoter.

“He’s like, ‘How much are you making in this fight?'” Holder today told MMAjunkie Radio.

It was a weird question. After all, Holder thought, shouldn’t he know? WSOF President Ali Abdelaziz had signed him to a deal that, on that night, would put him across the cage from Jake Heun, an MMA vet who twice flirted with the UFC via “The Ultimate Fighter.”

Holder (9-1) and Heun (7-4) were scheduled to meet on the NBCSN-televised main card in a reserve bout for a four-man light-heavyweight tournament – to crown a new light-heavyweight champion – at WSOF 19 at Phoenix’s Comerica Theatre. Holder was scheduled to make $3,000 to show with another $3,000 possible as a win bonus.

Abdelaziz, however, had different plans. Just hours before the card was scheduled to take place, UFC vet Matt Hamill (11-5), who was scheduled to fight fellow castoff Thiago Silva (16-4) as part of the tournament, withdrew from the fight due to illness.

Abdelaziz offered Holder $10,000 to fight Silva and $10,000 if he won.

“My heart just sunk,” Holder said. “I was like, ‘Let me get back to you.'”

Holder caught up at the host hotel with his team, who reasoned that he had the knockout power to stop Silva. And even if he lost the fight, they added, his stock wouldn’t drop. After all, he was supposed to lose.

“‘So take the opportunity and run with it,'” Holder remembers them saying.

And run with it he did. After taking a few of Silva’s best punches and kicks to the legs, he snuck in a right hook that floored the Brazilian, setting up a first-round TKO. It was his eighth straight win and his highest-profile victory to date.

But it sure wasn’t easy.

“He knocked the hell out of me,” Holder said. “I don’t think I’ve ever been hit harder. For a minute, my right eye crossed. I had to close my right eye so I wouldn’t see three of him.”

Even now, Holder is still taking in the reality that he beat such a well-known fighter on short notice. Although he notes he had once been been offered a fight with UFC vet Sean Salmon on three days’ notice earlier in his career, Silva is in a different league altogether.

“I can’t say I had it all the way,” Holder said. “But I was confident going into it. If I didn’t think I could win, I wouldn’t have taken the fight, no matter how much money was offered. But I definitely wasn’t 100 percent sure I was going to win the fight. You can’t bullsh-t with Thiago Silva. I’m a nobody compared to him.”

Clearly, that’s no longer the case. What comes next for Holder is a chance to boost his stock even more. Now he’s advanced to the tourney final and will face the winner of a meeting between UFC vets Rony Markes and Dave Branch, the WSOF’s middleweight champ, who’s stepping up a division in hopes of winning the light-heavyweight title.

In 2014 Holder said he was supposed to fight Markes when a bout with Hamill fell through. By the time he got that offer, which came 20 days before the event, he had stopped training and was forced to decline.

This time, it’s a different story.

“I’d like to get that opportunity to fight him again,” Holder said.

For more on WSOF 19, check out the MMA Events section of the site.

MMAjunkie Radio broadcasts Monday-Friday at noon ET (9 a.m. PT) live from Mandalay Bay Resort & Casino’s Race & Sports Book. The show, available on SiriusXM channel 92, is hosted by “Gorgeous” George Garcia and producer Brian “Goze” Garcia. For more information or to download past episodes, go to www.mmajunkie.com/radio.