Bellator 163 is just hours away, but the main card has lost one of its featured matchups.
Welterweight Paul Daley, who made weight at 171 pounds at yesterday’s weigh-ins, has been pulled from tonight’s bout vs. Derek Anderson. Bellator president Scott Coker confirmed the news to MMA Fighting.
“After a difficult weight cut, we, along with Mike Mazzulli from the Mohegan Athletic Commission, made the decision to pull Paul Daley from tonight’s event as a precautionary measure,” Coker said. “Fighter safety is of the utmost importance to us here at Bellator.”
Daley has had multiple instances of weight cutting problems in the past, including a failure to make weight for fights against Jorge Masvidal and Yuya Shirai.
Also scrapped from the event is a women’s featherweight matchup between Marloes Coenen and Talita Nogueira, after Nogueira missed weight by more than 5 pounds. This is the 2nd time that Coenen has had an opponent miss weight badly, as Alexis Dufresne came in 4 pounds heavy earlier this year. That fight went on as scheduled, but Coenen suffered a submission loss.
Bellator has since promoted Neiman Gracie vs. Rudy Bears to the main card, which evidently is now just four fights instead of five.
Bellator 163 airs live tonight from the Mohegan Sun Casino in Connecticut, starting at 9 PM ET/PT on Spike.
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