Angela Hill off UFC 207 due to USADA guidelines

Invicta strawweight champion Angela Hill is going to have to wait a while before returning to the UFC.

The current Invicta strawweight champion was slated to return for UFC 207 later this month against Jessica Andrade, but her return was cut short upon receiving the news that she has to re-enter the USADA testing pools due to their guidelines.

Hill, who had previously been in the UFC and been under USADA testing, still has to wait the four-month period and be tested during this time before she can fight in the UFC again. An emotional Hill took to social media to address the matter and announce that she will in fact not be fighting on December 30th.

[Partial transcription, courtesy of MMAFighting.com]:

“I really wanted to get one more fight in this year,” Hill said in the video, through tears. “I thought it was going to be a really good fight for me. I knew I could beat her. I’m really sorry. I just wanted to let all my fans know that I’m not ducking her, I’m not a punk. I was ready to jump in there when no one else wanted to and fight a really tough opponent and have a great fight and put on a show for the fans. But it’s not gonna happen this year.”

This is a loss for the strawweight division, as Hill had come off The Ultimate Fighter and was signed to the UFC only to be cut after going 1-2. She was promptly picked up by Invicta, where she won four straight fights, including a hard-fought title fight against sturdy Brazilian Livia Renata Souza. This came after two consecutive wins, both sensational knockouts over former Judoka Alida Grey and former title contender Stephanie Eggink.

To make matters worse, this comes on the same day that popular video game website Kotaku published a great interview with Hill about how she got into fighting and how video games and cosplay influence her. She also discusses how certain fighting games make more sense now that she’s an actual fighter. In a key portion of the interview, Hill was even asked about the woman at the mountaintop of her her division:

Grayson: How do you think you match up with UFC strawweight champion Joanna Jędrzejczyk, who is absolutely terrifying?

Hill: We’re both strikers. She actually has more Muay Thai fights than me. I think she has 20 something, and I have 16. I’ve beaten girls like that before. I’ve beaten people with twice as many fights as I have before. I don’t think that there would be the threat of wrestling, at least not so much that I couldn’t handle it, because she’s a striker. We probably have the same amount of wrestling under our belts. I definitely think I could hit her and move, and outstrike her, and handle her strikes. I really want to fight her. I think it’d be a really awesome fight.

And I think she’s a c**t, so it’d be fun to just piss her off by hitting her.

In the meantime, Hill will wait to make her return to the UFC cage. As for her opponent, Andrade and her team claim they are still looking for an opponent to face for the event.