Julija Stoliarenko’s fight with Julia Avila was called off after frightening scenes at the UFC Vegas 22 weigh-ins.
Last Friday Julija Stoliarenko stepped to the scales in an attempt to make weight for her UFC Vegas 22 clash with Julia Avila. However, on her first attempt, the Lithuanian stumbled back off the scales and collapses to the floor.
Remarkably, she was permitted to step to the scales again in order to make weight. She did this, hitting her limit for the UFC’s bantamweight division and even posed for photographs. Soon after that, though, she began to wobble and then collapsed for a second time.
This time she appeared to lose consciousness and convulse before regaining her senses. After that she was provided with water and stretchered out of the weigh-in room. Her fight with Avila was quickly cancelled.
Stoliraneko has now shared her perspective on what went wrong that day. In an Instagram video she cited a botched weight cut as the culprit for her fainting spells.
“The problem wasn’t my weight cut, and actually I want to say it was one of the easiest cuts in my career and weight was dropping too fast,” she said (ht MMA Junkie). “The main issue, I think, was that I made weight too early.”
Stoliarenko went on to say that she was on weight at 5 a.m on Friday and that this meant she was dehydrated for at least the four hours before the official weigh-ins were scheduled to start.
“I just was too long time on weight. As everybody knows, when you cut weight you cannot be on this weight for too long, because you’re already on the limits of your dehydration and so on. That was an issue why it all happened.”
Stoliarenko was hoping to have her second UFC appearance on the weekend and rebound from last August’s debut loss to Yana Kunitskaya.
Prior to re-joining the UFC Stoliarenko beat Lisa Verzosa to win the Invicta FC bantamweight championship in one of the most gripping (and bloody) fights of 2020. She earned that opportunity thanks to a five fight win streak, which included four armbar submission, on the Baltic regional scene.
In 2018 she was a contestant on The Ultimate Fighter: Heavy Hitters. She was eliminated from that show by Pannie Kianzad in the semi-finals and then lost her finale fight opposite Leah Letson.