Former UFC light heavyweight Tyson Pedro has long been planning to make his boxing debut after stepping away from MMA earlier this year. In March, the 33-year old announced his retirement following a loss to Vitor Petrino at the UFC Apex in Las Vegas.
He then planned to step through the ropes and booked a pro boxing debut against Kris Terzievski for June 12 in Australia that was cancelled after Pedro pulled out of the fight in May due to an injury. Terzievski is a 12-1 pro who has competed exclusively in Australia since making his debut back in 2016.
The match-up was then rescheduled to take place on November 20 where the WBC International and Australasian bridgerweight titles would be on the line. On the day of the fight, the bout was cancelled with reports that there was a pay dispute on Terzievski’s side which led to him flying home, as seen below:
Pedro gave his side of the story in an interview with the event’s broadcaster, Stan Sport.
“I’ve come from the biggest promotion, the UFC, in the world and I picked the best bridgerweight in the country and he bailed on me so I expected him to run in the ring but I didn’t expect him to run in the sea.”
Pedro detailed how he was told that the fight might not go ahead before it was clear that he would no longer be headlining the card.
“I got a call saying that he might be, I won’t go into details, the truth will come out of everything that’s happened but yeah, I just got a call, maybe it was off, maybe it was on and I didn’t understand it and then I found out that he was on a plane so.”
Having been booked against the same opponent twice already, the former UFC light heavyweight who fought 11 times inside the Octagon isn’t too confident about trying to run this fight one more time.
“If you leave me standing at the aisle, how can you ask me to marry you again?”
“I expected him to run in the ring, but I didn’t expect him to run interstate.”
Tyson Pedro has his say on what happened this morning.
? Uncaged. Live & Ad-free on Stan & Stan Sport.#StanSportAU #Uncaged pic.twitter.com/jOxcdmjAKF
— Stan Sport (@StanSportAU) November 20, 2024
Tyson Pedro has his say on what happened this morning.