After an extremely solemn week in Las Vegas, many people planned to turn to this weekend's Ultimate Fighting Championship pay-per-view to find a way to temporarily remove their minds off Sunday night's tragedy. Earlier today, tomorrow's night's UFC 216 almost lost its Main Event.
Close calls
Kevin Lee weighed in at 156-pounds on his first attempt for his UFC interim lightweight title fight with Tony Ferguson. Because the fight is a title fight, there is no one-pound lenience. Ferguson weighed in on the mark at 155-pound but Lee missed the mark.
The Nevada Athletic Commission granted Lee one extra hour to come in on point.
It took nearly the entire 60-minutes before Lee came back, but when he did, he was under the limit, coming in at 154.5 pounds. It was a close call but the main event was saved.
Yesterday Lee bragged to MMA Fighting reporter Ariel Helwani that he still had 19 pounds to cut. In a time when athletic commissions are closely monitoring how fighters are cutting weight, it was a bold and dangerous statement for Lee to make.
His opponent, Ferguson also almost had a close encounter with puling out of the fight. Earlier this week Ferguson revealed that his family was headed to the concert where Stephen Paddock gunned down hundreds of victims, killing 58. Luckily Ferguson's wife decided at the last minute not to attend the music festival, however it was a fear that has haunted him throughout the week.
Had the main event been cancelled, the co-main event, a flyweight title fight between Demetrious Johnson and Ray Borg would have moved up to top spot. That fight was supposed to headline UFC 215 last month but Borg dropped out the day of the contest citing illness. Borg made weight today for the 125-pound fight but has had weight cutting troubles in the past so the possibility of losing both title fights definitely was a concern for the UFC organization.
With a win tomorrow night, Johnson will enter the UFC record books as the champion who has successfully defended his title the most times consecutively. He is currently tied at 11 wins with former middleweight champion Anderson Silva.
UFC 216 fight card
Main card (pay-per-view - 10 p.m. EST)
- Tony Ferguson vs. Kevin Lee (for UFC interim lightweight title)
- Demetrious Johnson vs. Ray Borg (for UFC flyweight title)
- Fabricio Werdum vs. Derrick Lewis
- Kalindra Faria vs. Mara Romero Borella
- Beneil Dariush vs Evan Dunham
Preliminary Bouts (FXX - 8 p.m.
EST)
- Tom Duquesnoy vs. Cody Stamann
- Lando Vannata vs. Bobby Green
- Pearl Gonzalez vs. Poliana Botelho
Preliminary Bouts (UFC Fight Pass - 6 p.m. EST)
- Walt Harris vs. Mark Godbeer
- Majored Bibulatov vs. John Moraga
- Brad Tavares vs. Thales Leites
- Matt Schnell vs. Marco Beltran
