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Uriah Hall was supposed to fight former UFC middleweight title challenger Yoel Romero earlier this year and “Prime Time” isn’t letting “Solider of God” off the hook.
The bout was originally scheduled for UFC Vegas 7 back in August before Romero withdrew from the fight for undisclosed reasons. As a result, Hall was removed from the card and eventually landed a great matchup against former UFC middleweight champion and pound-for-pound legend Anderson Silva this coming October.
While Hall drew comparisons to Silva earlier in his career and possesses the necessary striking skills to force “Spider” to fight in his last Octagon appearance, “Prime Time” still isn’t happy that Romero left him high and dry.
Earlier this month Hall shared a fight poster to his Instagram account for his upcoming clash with Silva. When a fan commented that Hall should still fight Romero to move up the middleweight rankings “Prime Time” went H.A.M. and put Romero on blast.
“F—k the rankings. It’s a joke. There’s no way I’m gonna sit around and have a bunch of motherf—kers that don’t know me tell me where I am ranked,” wrote Hall (via LowKick MMA).
“And I will fight that bitch. He punted out because he knew I was going to destroy his ass. The only reason why he didn’t want to fight me is because Jones left the light heavyweight belt so his bitch ass decided to move up.”
While there has been no official announcement regarding Romero’s move up to light heavyweight it has been teased before. Then again, Romero spoke to reporters leading into his fight with Israel Adesanya at UFC 248 back in March and suggested that light heavyweight wasn’t an option because “the opponents are too heavy.”
All of that said, a move up in weight for Romero wouldn’t be the worst thing. Despite being one of the best middleweight fighters in the world today Romero is log-jammed in the division as far as a title shot goes. He has already lost to the current champion, Adesanya, No. 1 contender Paulo Costa, and former champion Robert Whittaker, who is making his own push for another shot at gold.
For Hall, a bout with Romero would have meant more for his own future at 185 pounds. Silva is still a great consolation price, especially considering all the attention that will follow his last trip to the cage, but a win over Romero could have launched Hall up the middleweight pecking order.
As for Romero, we’ll have to wait and see if he actually moves up to light heavyweight or if he pulled out of his fight with Hall for another reason.