UFC flyweight Matheus Nicolau has criticized Manel Kape for missing weight by 3.5 pounds for their scheduled bout at UFC Vegas 84, calling him “irresponsible, reckless and disrespectful”, and accusing him of trying to gain an unfair advantage by cheating the system.
Matheus Nicolau ain’t buying Manel Kape’s excuses. Not one bit.
The seasoned UFC flyweight let loose a hefty statement on Friday. He was slamming his would-be opponent, Manel Kape, who missed the mark on his weight by a whopping 3.5 pounds for UFC Vegas 84.
Kape tipped the scales at 129.5 pounds on Friday morning in Las Vegas. He was all set to face Nicolau in what was supposed to be the co-main event of UFC Vegas 84. The initial plan? The fight would go on as a catchweight, with Kape giving up 25 percent of his purse to Nicolau. But, things didn’t go as planned. The matchup got axed.
Kape took to social media to share his side of the story. He claimed he was sick two weeks before the fight. He also said that Nicolau turned down a catchweight bout.
Nicolau, though, had a different take. He called Kape “irresponsible, reckless, and disrespectful.” He also accused Kape of trying to game the system for an unfair advantage.
You can read Nicolau’s full comments below, translated by MMA Fighting’s Guilherme Cruz.
“The Manel Kape fight was cancelled, to the disappointment of MMA fans, my fans, and of course, me and my entire team. And the only person responsible for this is Manel Kape himself. It’s the duty of the martial artist to make weight the day before the fight.”
“I’ve been on a restrictive diet, cutting weight for 5 weeks now. I focused on Christmas, New Year, and my birthday with diet, training, and time away from my family. Today, I woke up at 5am to finish the process and weigh in at the 126 pounds needed for the fight to happen.”
“Kape didn’t. He showed up for the weigh-in with 30 minutes left, so there was no time for the UFC to ask him to cut more weight. He showed up 3.5 pounds over, knowing that if he weighed 0.5 pounds more, the fight would be automatically suspended by the athletic commission.”
“In my opinion, he tried to gain an unfair advantage by cheating the system. Kape was irresponsible, reckless, and disrespectful. He disrespected me as a colleague, opponent, and martial artist. Disrespected MMA. Disrespected the UFC. Disrespected companies that support the sport. But, above all, he disrespected you, UFC fan, MMA fan, Matheus Nicolau fan, Manel Kape fan.”
UFC Vegas 84 is now an 11-fight card at the UFC APEX. It’s headlined by a light heavyweight rematch between Magomed Ankalaev and Johnny Walker.
With Nicolau vs. Kape off the table, a lightweight bout between Jim Miller and Gabriel Benitez has been bumped up to the new co-main event.