Nora
Cornolle has revealed that she and opponent Melissa
Mullins had mutually agreed to miss weight for their
UFC Fight Night 240 clash.
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Cornolle folded Mullins with a devastating knee to the body
followed by head kicks in the second round to start off the
preliminary card at the UFC Apex in Las Vegas on Saturday. While
Cornolle weighed in at 138 pounds, Mullins weighed in at 138.5,
making it essentially a catchweight bout.
Cornolle subsequently revealed that a catchweight bout was being
discussed throughout the day of the weigh-ins. According to
“Wonder,” Mullins was in bad shape when they met at the UFC
Performance Institute, where they were both cutting weight.
Cornolle claims Mullins immediately approached her with the
proposal of a catchweight contest, which she was also considering
as she didn’t want the bout to fall through. But Cornolle planned
on trying to make weight till the very end and advised her opponent
the same.
However, the Frenchwoman was soon approached by a UFC official with
Mullins’ request for a catchweight bout. Cornolle then approached
her coaches who also told her to keep trying until the end.
However, Cornolle realized that the clock was also running out for
her to make weight. With about an hour to go before they stepped on
the scales, both fighters agreed to miss weight.
“Actually we were cutting weight at the same place, at the [UFC] PI
in the morning,” Cornolle said during a post-fight media scrum. “So I was doing my stuff, we
met early in the morning. She looked like super, super tired. I was
like, ‘OK.’ I thought she finished and I was starting to lose my
last kilo. And I still had 700 grams to lose, so I went to the
sauna. And she was, yeah, in a bad state in the sauna. And when she
saw directly she was like, ‘Hey, do you want to talk to the
commission?’ And I was like, ‘Well I don’t know, we still have
time. Won’t you go until the end? I agree with you, I don’t want
you to jeopardize your health. Because I don’t want you to be sick
before tomorrow, I want that fight to happen.’ So I was really
divided, because I was like, ‘If she pushed and try to make the
weight maybe she won’t be able to fight. And that’ll be the biggest
frustration of all this last month.…I’m like let’s go for it, I’ll
have less to do as well.’ So I was like, ‘You know what, let’s push
till the end.’
“One of the [people] of the PI came and she was like, ‘Melissa
wants to talk to you, she wants catchweight.’ I was like, ‘But I
just asked her to wait until 10:30 so we can know.’ And I talked to
my coaches and they were like, ‘We don’t used [sic] to do that, so
go as we used to do until the end.’ And I was like, ‘What should I
do, I’m tired too.’ With all [those] conversations, the person at
the PI was like, ‘Anyway you have 10 minutes left so you still have
to break a sweat and you’re gonna be like super short.’ And I was
like, ‘Well you know what, let’s do it.’”
Cornolle handed Mullins her first pro loss while extending her
winning streak to eight, which includes two UFC outings.