Making weight with less than two weeks to prepare proved to be a bridge too far for Vanessa Melo.
The debuting fighter tipped the scales at 140 pounds at Friday’s UFC Mexico City weigh-ins, four pounds over the limit (including a one-pound allowance) for her bantamweight bout with Irene Aldana on Saturday. Melo is stepping in on just 10 days’ notice for Marion Reneau, who withdrew from the card for undisclosed reasons.
MMA Fighting confirmed that Aldana has agreed to accept the bout at a catchweight and Melo will be fined 30 percent of her purse, following an initial report by MMA Junkie.
Melo’s team told MMA Fighting’s Guilherme Cruz that their fighter was hydrated, but her weight stopped going down on Thursday. They couldn’t say whether it was the altitude or taking the fight on short notice that may have affected her cut.
All of the other 23 fighters competing at Saturday’s show in Mexico City, Mexico, successfully made weight, including featherweight headliners Yair Rodriguez and Jeremy Stephens.
See the full weigh-in results below:
Main Card (ESPN+ at 8 p.m. ET)
Yair Rodriguez (145) vs. Jeremy Stephens (145)
Carla Esparza (115) vs. Alexa Grasso (116)
Brandon Moreno (124) vs. Askar Askarov (125)
Irene Aldana (135) vs. Vanessa Melo (140)*
Martin Bravo (144) vs. Steven Peterson (146)
Preliminaries (ESPN+ at 5 p.m. ET)
Jose Quinonez (134) vs. Carlos Huachin (136)
Polo Reyes (145) vs. Kyle Nelson (146)
Ariane Carnelossi (112) vs. Angela Hill (115)
Sergio Pettis (124) vs. Tyson Nam (126)
Vinicius Moreira (206) vs. Paul Craig (206)
Sijara Eubanks (135) vs. Bethe Correia (136)
Claudio Puelles (155) vs. Marcos Mariano (154)