UFC Vegas 103 lost two undercard fights after a pair of miscues at the official weigh-in.
A week after UFC Seattle went ahead after several fight cancelations and switch-ups, the UFC underwent another pair of issues before UFC Vegas 103 at the Apex.
UFC Vegas 103 is headlined by a pivotal flyweight clash between the division’s top contenders, Manel Kape and Asu Almabayev, who will battle it out for title positioning. The co-main event features middleweight brawlers Cody Brundage and Julian Marquez.
Despite the top two fights of the UFC Vegas 103 card remaining intact, the event lost a pair of undercard fights due to issues at Friday’s official weigh-in.
UFC Vegas 103 takes two big hits due to medical issues at weigh-in
UFC flyweight Luana Carolina, who has a history of issues on the weigh-in scale, struggled with her weight cut on Friday ahead of her scheduled bout with Montana De La Rosa. As reported by MMA Fighting, Carolina failed to get within five pounds of the flyweight weight limit (126 lbs), and the Nevada State Athletic Commission won’t allow her fight to move forward at a catchweight.
De La Rosa was willing to fight Carolina at a catchweight before the commission stepped in and disallowed the bout. Carolina missed weight by three pounds ahead of a clash with Julija Stoliarenko last February, a fight in which she went on to win.
In a separate incident, bantamweight Douglas Silva de Andrade was pulled from his scheduled bout with John Castaneda due to an unspecified medical issue. Silva and Castaneda agreed to a 140-pound catchweight bout before the UFC announced the fight’s cancelation in a recent announcement.
Manel Kape clashes with surging Asu Almabayev in first UFC main event
Kape and Almabayev are expected to treat fight fans to a show in the UFC Vegas 103 main event on Saturday. Kape is fresh off a destructive win over Bruno Silva at UFC Tampa in December, and despite pleas for a title shot, he was awarded his first UFC main event booking.
Kape won five of his previous six fights entering UFC Vegas 103, including finishes of Ode’ Osbourne and Zhalgas Zhumagulov. Kape’s win over Silva came after a unanimous decision defeat to Muhammad Mokaev at UFC 304 last July.
Almabayev enters UFC Vegas 103 on a 17-fight winning streak, featuring UFC wins over Matheus Nicolau and Jose Johnson.
Follow along here at Bloody Elbow for all the latest from UFC Vegas 103.
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