Former “The Ultimate Fighter” season eight winner, Efrain Escudero (17-3) has been forced to withdraw from the upcoming BAMMA 7 event due to visa issues. Escudero had been scheduled to meet British fighter Tim Radcliffe on the main card of the UK event.
Escudero reported the news to MMAWeekly.com on Monday, saying that issues over his visa prevented him from flying to England today. So the fighter and his manager decided to simply withdraw from the event rather than waiting to see if the issue would be resolved later in the week.
“Apparently they couldn’t fly me in, in time, they wanted to fly me up on Thursday and I would get there Friday at 1 o’clock and there’s no way.”
“They said it was a visa issue, they couldn’t, I really don’t know the full scale about it. They said it was a visa issue.”
BAMMA 7 is scheduled to take place on September 10 at the NIA Arena in Birmingham, England and is highlighted by a middleweight main event between Frank Trigg vs. Jim Wallhead.
Escudero was released from the UFC a year ago after a submission loss to Charles Oliveira at UFC Fight Night 22. Escudero faced Oliveira in a 159 lbs catchweight bout, and failed to make that weight for the fight.
Since then the TUF winner has gone on to fight five times in the last year, going 4-1 with various promotions. His last victory came in July at a local event in Miami, Florida.