Once again, Yoel Romero missed weight thus he will not be competing for the UFC middleweight title on Saturday. Romero weighed in at 186 pounds and then came in at 185.2 pounds on his second attempt, which makes him ineligible to win the title in Saturday’s main event.
The 41-year-old Romero also had issues making weight for his interim middleweight title fight with Luke Rockhold at UFC 221 back in February. He stepped in for an injured Whittaker, but Romero was unable to make the 185-pound mark for the middleweight bout. Rockhold was the only man eligible to win the interim title, but Romero defeated him via third-round knockout. Though Romero would not be awarded a championship belt, the outcome earned him a shot at Whittaker.
Monday on The MMA Hour, Romero told MMA Fighting’s Ariel Helwani that his weight had never been a concern in the past and stated that he was not expecting it to be an issue for UFC 225.
“I don’t make nothing different from what I do every time when I go to the fight,” Romero told Helwani when asked if he felt any extra pressure to make weight. “The problem last time was not having time. That was the only problem.”
“When you have the normal training camp and you miss weight, that’s the big problem,” he continued. “Like, ‘Oh, a mistake!’ But when you know you can’t make the weight because something happened — for example, you’re sick. ‘Okay, I don’t make the weight because I’m sick.’ This is different than when you don’t make the weight because you don’t have discipline, you don’t have the responsibility. That’s different. Or maybe because you can’t go down to this division. That’s different.
“But I do this division for 21 years. I don’t have a problem.”