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A permanent relocation up to bantamweight might be in the cards for
the Ultimate Fighting Championship’s Rogerio
Bontorin.
Ahead of the early weigh-ins for
UFC 275 on Friday, Bontorin was set to hit the scales for his
flyweight clash against Manel Kape.
Before it took place, Eurosport
NL reported that Bontorin was hospitalized that morning for
what was at the time undisclosed issues.
Combate subsequently broke the story that Bontorin was sent to
the hospital due to kidney pain, when he was about 130 pounds and
trying to cut the remaining four. The UFC has
confirmed Bontorin’s withdrawal due to “issues with weight
management,” and the lineup shifted to slot the welterweight scrap
between Andre
Fialho and Jake
Matthews up to the main card.
On his Instagram,
Kape wrote of the fight cancelation while still in good spirits,
and wished his opponent a swift recovery.
“So in the easiest way, my fight was canceled,” Kape wrote, “my
opponent got sick cutting his weight and ended up in the hospital.
I wish him the best and a healthy recovery. I clearly understand
the sacrifice of cutting weight and the intentions of being
physically prepared. I’m hungry for a fight, I’m physically well,
mentally always 100% I can’t wait to put my body to work. Stay
optimistic Oss.”
Kape (17-6) was aiming to make his first appearance of the year
against Bontorin, and he would have done so on a two-fight knockout
triumph streak. In August 2021, he sparked Ode
Osbourne with a flying knee and follow-up punches, and he went
on to put away Zhalgas
Zhumagulov in the opening round in December with his hands.
Kape and Bontorin were initially supposed to meet in Kape’s
promotional debut in 2020 at UFC 252, but Bontorin suffered an
injury and Kape had to wait until 2021 to fight. “Starboy”
celebrates a stellar career finish rate of 94% as a pro.
This is not Bontorin’s (16-4, 2 NC) first issue with the scale in
his career. In 2016, a Pancrase match resulted in a no contest against
Takeshi
Kasugai, as he won the fight by first-round submission but
could not earn a victory due to his weight miss. The Brazilian
faced Matt
Schnell at 135 pounds in 2021, and although he won the fight by
decision, he missed the bantamweight cap by a pound and went on to
test positive for hydrochlorothiazide, a diuretic. That fight too
was later declared a no contest. As a result, Bontorin has not
officially won a bout since 2019, when he forced the doctors to
step in due to the damage he inflicted on Raulian
Paiva.
UFC 275 will carry on with 11 matches inside the Singapore Indoor
Stadium in Kallang, Singapore, on June 11. The event will be
headlined by a light heavyweight championship battle between
Glover
Teixeira and Jiri
Prochazka, while the co-main attraction sees Valentina
Shevchenko defend her flyweight strap against Taila
Santos. Additionally, Weili Zhang
and Joanna
Jedrzejczyk run back one of the best fights in UFC history at
strawweight, albeit only three rounds this time. With Kape-Bontorin
off, the welterweight fight between Andre
Fialho and Jake
Matthews takes its place, while fellow 170 pounders Jack
Della Maddalena and Ramazan
Emeev will still open the main card.