John Dodson vs. Pedro Munhoz removed from UFC Belem
The UFC Belem co-main event between John Dodson and Pedro Munhoz is off, hours after Munhoz badly missed the bantamweight limit.
UFC Fight Night: Machida vs. Anders has lost its co-headliner just a day out from the event.
MMA Fighting’s Guilherme Cruz reported on Friday that a bantamweight bout between John Dodson and Pedro Munhoz has been removed from the lineup. Munhoz badly missed weight, coming in at 140 pounds, four pounds over the limit, and Dodson has opted not to accept the bout at a catchweight.
As Cruz notes, “several fighters had issues cutting weight for the event after the hotel dealt with issues overnight and they didn’t have hot water to help losing weight.” Michel Prazeres and Eryk Anders both came in heavy for their respective bouts, although Anders was able to cut to the middleweight limit on his second attempt. Prazeres’ fight with Desmond Green will go on as scheduled.
The new co-main event is expected to be Valentina Shevchenko against Priscila Cachoeira, in what is the UFC debut for Cachoeira and the flyweight debut for Shevchenko. This is the fourth time already in 2018 that either the main or co-main event of a UFC card has been scrapped, and arguably the most compelling matchup on Saturday night’s event in Belem, Brazil is now part of that list.
Bantamweights Douglas Silva de Andrade and Marlon Vera will now be moved to the main card. Maia Stevenson vs. Polyana Viana is expected to be bumped to the FS2 prelims, and the card will now start at 7:30 PM ET/4:30 PM PT.