Cynthia Calvillo has a really good reason for missing weight for her main card bout with women’s strawweight Poliana Botelho later this evening (Sat., Nov. 17, 2018) at UFC Fight Night 140 in Buenos Aires, Argentina.
According to Calvillo, who missed weight by two pounds earlier this week and nearly collapsed on stage due to sheer exhaustion and bodily failure, she had no control over her ability to shed the final few pounds.
“Basically what happened is I started my period this week,” Calvillo told MMA Fighting’s Guilherme Cruz. “We were kind of prepared for it, because we could feel the symptoms, but unfortunately this morning when we got up it was about 5:30 and I had two pounds to go. Then, I couldn’t cut any weight at all from 5:30 to 8 a.m. We tried everything and I could not break a sweat. Even when I got up to the scale, I was the same weight that I woke up at 5:30 in the morning.”
Calvillo, 31, has never missed weight before, although she is coming off a six-month suspension after testing positive for marijuana metabolites for her fight with Carla Esparza at UFC 219 last year. That bout, which resulted in Calvillo’s first professional loss, was nearly 12 months ago. It’s a fight that Calvillo would love to avenge, so the Team Alpha Male standout should consider herself lucky to still be fighting tonight in Buenos Aires.
“They decided to go ahead and stop me from continuing cutting the weight at 9 a.m.,” Calvillo said. “They didn’t want to make me suffer more so that I was still able to fight. So, that’s basically what happened. Unfortunately, we tried to prepare the best for it, but my body was just not sweating due to having to retain the water because of my period.”
Despite her botched weight cut, Calvillo can regain most of the momentum she lost against Esparza if she’s able to take out Botelho later this evening. Botelho is one of the most highly-touted prospects at 115 pounds and a win over her should land Calvillo back in title contention.