The 40-year-old Cuban is coming off his first loss in more than five years in his last bout. Romero faced Robert Whitaker for the interim UFC Middleweight Title at UFC 213 in July. Despite winning a Fight Of The Night bonus, Whitaker won the fight by unanimous decision. Whitaker was promoted to undisputed champion on 7 December, after George St. Pierre vacated the title. St. Pierre took the belt from Michael Bisping at UFC 217 in November.
Whitaker was supposed to be facing Luke Rockhold for the championship tonight in Perth, Australia, but pulled out with an undisclosed injury. The UFC inserted Romero on 13 January, which is nearly a month for Romero to prepare for Rockhold.
At yesterday’s weigh-ins, Romero initially tipped the scales at 188.3 lbs...more than three pounds heavier than the 185 limit. By UFC rules, Romero was given two full hours to reduce the weight. Romero was only able to get down to 187.7.
This is near-uncharted territory for the UFC, with any championship fight in the organization’s history. The last time this occurred was at UFC 206, when Anthony Pettis came in overweight against Max Holloway. Pettis dropped back down to lightweight after the loss, and Holloway is the reigning UFC Featherweight Champion.
Romero, by rule, must surrender 20 percent of his purse to Rockhold, and cannot win the interim championship with a victory tonight. Rockhold now picks up the near-equivalent of a fight bonus before he even steps into the octagon, and can win a championship his opponent is ineligible for. The fight is now being contested at catchweight.
This is the last thing the UFC needed for the card tonight. Outside of the main event, there is not much firepower in the remaining 11 fights. You have Mark Hunt in the co-main event, Dong Hyun Kim on the FS1 prelims, and Ross Pearson on the UFC FIght Pass prelims. There is no women’s contest on tonight’s card. However, the women are involved in main event fights each of the next two PPVs (“Cyborg” vs. Yana Kunitskaya at UFC 222, and the rematch between Joanna Jedrzejczyk and Rose Namajunas at UFC 223). There’s even talk of Amanda Nunes and Raquel Pennington taking center stage at UFC 224.
We’ve seen fighters like Thiago Alves cut more than 19 pounds in less than a day to make weight for a championship fight, and Romero can’t drop three in two hours? Then again, Alves was taken down a then-UFC record 11 times by GSP, in one of the most lopsided championship fights in MMA history.
Rockhold is going into his fourth appearance on a UFC pay-per-view, where he is 2-1 in the previous efforts. Rockhold last fought in Australia at a UFC Fight Night against Michael Bisping in November of 2014. Rockhold choked out Bisping in that fight, only for Bisping to get his revenge at UFC 199 in June of 2016, where Bisping took the Middleweight title away with a first round knockout (3:36).
Rockhold has to be the luckiest man in the UFC at the moment. He’s getting a summer vacation tonight (it will be at least 70° F outside the arena tonight), a bonus check, and a shot to win his third middleweight championship this decade (between the UFC and Strikeforce).
Romero, on the other hand, is at a crossroads in his UFC career. He was the next streaking star that everyone thought deserved a title shot. He lost his first shot, and just watched the Road Runner--or in this case, a second chance--leave him choking on dust. Romero could have stepped into elite company by winning the title tonight at 40. Only Dan Henderson and Randy Couture have headlined a UFC PPV in a title fight after turning 40.
I guess three really does cause a crowd.
-JC24