It seems like Jimmie Rivera won’t be fighting at UFC 219.
Over the weekend, The bantamweight fighter’s bout against John Lineker was scrapped due to Linker needing emergency surgery to his wisdom tooth due to an infection. Lineker was actually a replacement for former bantamweight champion Dominick Cruz.
Now, with a few days before UFC 219, opportunities for Rivera to find a suitable replacement seemed to dwindle, but then fifth-ranked Marlon Moraes offered to step in over Twitter and it looked like Rivera would be apart of the final UFC pay-per-view of 2017.
Moraes status has skyrocketed in the past few months, defeating John Dodson at UFC Norfolk back in November and then jumping in as a late – notice replacement against Aljamain Sterling earlier this past month in Fresno, but with less than a week until fight day, the weight cut seemed to be an issue for Moraes; however, It was something Rivera was willing to facilitate.
But it looks like that may not have been enough. Later in the evening, Rivera returned to social media, posting that Moraes turned down the fight at 145 pounds and explaining that he was still out in Las Vegas and ready to fight, but leaving it unclear on whether he would be accepting another short-notice opponent.
But if Rivera is willing to accept a fight other than the Moraes one, he doesn’t have to look far. Another highly ranked bantamweight jumped at the opportunity to re-insert himself in the title picture after the Rivera-Moraes fight seemingly fell through, former two-time flyweight title challenger John Dodson.