Yoel Romero’s botched weigh in at yesterday’s UFC 221 event was not with consequence, however, he’s lucky the fight is still on, because Luke Rockhold was ready to cancel the whole show after yesterday’s two missed attempts on the scale.
Romero was contractually obligated to make 185 pounds on the dot for the UFC 221 interim title fight. Instead, the Cubon olympian came in 3 pounds overweight on his first attempt, and 2.7 pounds overweight on his second attempt.
This sent Luke Rockhold and the UFC back to the negotiation table, where a new deal had to be struck in the final hour, in order to keep the bout intact.
While we do not have all the details of those negotiations, we do now have one small piece.
For missing weight, Yoel has been fined a staggering 30% of his fight purse. That fine will go directly to his opponent Luke Rockhold.
In Yoel Romero’s last bout, an interim title fight against Robert Whittaker, he made a contracted $350,000.00.
One can easily assume he did not take a pay cut for another main event interim title fight, this one he took on short notice.
So reasonably, Luke just pocketed an extra $105,000.00 at a minimum. But that 30% could actually be larger, due to the last minute nature of the booking, and the UFC’s known incentives given for fighters who pick up the pieces in scenarios like this.
