The only thing separating us from two scintillating title fights at UFC 316 in Newark is time.
All main card fighters successfully made weight Friday morning, with Kayla Harrison making the contracted cut-off of 135 pounds for her title fight against champion Julianna Pena in the co-main event.
One preliminary card fighter, though, missed weight by a stunning amount.
Harrison, 34, previously never made 135 pounds and certainly looked drained on the scales, but she is surely rehydrating now as she prepares to fight for a world title Saturday.
The first to the scale, perhaps surprisingly, was the “Sugar Show” Sean O’Malley, who is looking to recapture his bantamweight gold against Merab Dvalishvili.
O’Malley was defeated by Dvalishvili last October at The Sphere in Las Vegas.
The only fighter to miss the cut Friday was Ariane da Silva (formerly Ariane Lipski), who missed weight by six pounds.
| Fighter | Weight (pounds) |
|---|---|
| Merab Dvalishvili | 134 |
| Sean O’Malley | 135 |
| Julianna Peña | 135 |
| Kayla Harrison | 135 |
| Kelvin Gastelum | 185 |
| Joe Pyfer | 185 |
| Mario Bautista | 135.1 |
| Patchy Mix | 135.1 |
| Kevin Holland | 170.1 |
| Vicente Luque | 170 |
| Bruno Silva | 125 |
| Joshua Van | 125.1 |
| Azamat Murzakanov | 205 |
| Brendson Ribeiro | 205 |
| Waldo Cortes-Acosta | 265 |
| Serghei Spivac | 251 |
| Andreas Gustafsson | 170 |
| Khaos Williams | 170 |
| Wang Cong | 125 |
| Ariane da Silva | 132* |
| Jeka Saragih | 145 |
| Joo Sang Yoo | 145.1 |
| Yanal Ashmouz | 155 |
| Quillan Salkilld | 156 |
| Mark Choinski | 155 |
| MarQuel Mederos | 155 |
UFC broadcaster and former two-division champion Daniel Cormier was stunned she weighed 132 pounds when her maximum allowance was 126 pounds.
“Six pounds overweight? Well, that fight ain’t happening,” Cormier said on the broadcast of the weigh-ins. “How do you go up there at six pounds over? At six pounds over, you don’t go up there.”
Despite the massive weight miss, her opponent, Wang Cong, revealed on Instagram that she accepted the fight and will receive a portion of da Silva’s fight purse as compensation.