UFC 205 loses main card fight due to weight cutting issues

Photo: MMAJunkie.com

UFC 205 got off to a rollicking start Friday morning as several fighters missed weight, officially canceling one main card fight and nearly putting another in jeopardy.

Kelvin Gastelum, set to fight Donald “Cowboy” Cerrone on the PPV main card, didn’t bother even coming to the scale for the official Friday morning weigh-ins.

He tweeted that he wouldn’t be fighting Cerrone due to not being able to make the weight limit and that he will have to re-evaluate things in his life. He said everyone has bad days, but that he promised it wouldn’t happen again. Officials had no idea he wasn’t going to attempt to weigh in, causing some confusion at the end of the weigh-ins.

The problem with Gastelum’s statement is that this marks the third time he’s missed weight in his UFC career, one in which has struggled with making 170 pounds repeatedly. He won a season of TUF at 185 pounds and actually had to fight at that weight in a June 2015 bout against Nate Marquardt as a sort of punishment by the promotion.

Cerrone was set to fight Robbie Lawler at the event until the former champion had to pull out, citing needing more recovery time after his loss at the hands of Tyron Woodley. There will be no replacement opponent for the popular Cerrone who was said to be furious at the news. He was paid his show money.

UFC announced it will now be a five fight PPV card, likely meaning the extended 30 minute PPV window they originally got is now for naught.

Further down the card, Thiago Alves missed weight by more than 7 pounds (162.6) for his Fight Pass clash against Jim Miller. Due to NY state regulations, Miller had to be within seven pounds of Alves in order for the fight to go on, meaning he couldn’t weigh in at 155 pounds. 

Miller hit his mark at 157.6, so the fight will go on if Alves doesn’t weight more than 173 pounds on Saturday.

Alves is a Mike Dolce client, but Dolce released a statement to Ariel Helwani during the weigh-ins saying that Alves and his team diverted from the plan and went with a non-scientific method to cut.