Donald Cerrone was relishing the prospect of competing in New York for the first time in his career.
“This is one that I’ve wanted for a long time,” Cerrone told Megan Olivi earlier this week. “You always see great fights and tales of the Garden and once the UFC was in the mix, talking about legalising MMA in New York, I’d always wanted to be on it. So when it finally came true at the beginning of the year I started calling for New York, New York, New York. Here we are and I got it!”
He doesn’t have it any longer as his scheduled UFC 205 fight against Kelvin Gastelum is no more.
Cerrone came in at 170.4lbs at Friday morning’s official weigh-ins while Gastelum didn’t even make it to the scales and all indications were that he was not going to be able to make weight as a visibly irritated Cerrone left the stage.
Gastelum, who has a history of missing weight at welterweight, tweeted the below and apologised to ‘Cowboy’ for denying him the chance to compete on such a landmark card.
I will not be fighting @Cowboycerrone 2morrow on account that I couldn't make the wght limit. I apologize 2 cowboy ure a legend. God bless.
— #OnAmission4Gold (@KelvinGastelum) November 11, 2016
I'm sorry to My team, my friends and the ppl that genuinely care for me. Extremely dissapointed I will have to reevaluate things in my life.
— #OnAmission4Gold (@KelvinGastelum) November 11, 2016
No one is perfect. We all have bad days but I promise it will not happen again. I will comeback stronger like I have before. Until next time
— #OnAmission4Gold (@KelvinGastelum) November 11, 2016
UFC 205 already lost a high-profile fight earlier this week when it emerged that Rashad Evans would not be granted a licence for his middleweight debut against Tim Kennedy, who still weighed in on Friday.
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