UFC President Dana White told MMA Junkie he was “beyond pissed” at Anthony “Rumble” Johnson for weighing 197 pounds for a middleweight UFC 142 co-main event bout against Vitor Belfort.
White said Johnson came within a pound-and-a-half of the 186-pound limit allowed for non-title middleweight fights, but was forced by a doctor to rehydrate because “he couldn’t make it.”
“His job is on the line,” White stated, pulling no punches. “His job is absolutely on the line, win or lose.”
Glenn Robinson, Johnson’s manager, told both MMA Mania and Yahoo! Sports that the reason for being nowhere near the middleweight limit is that Rumble fell ill hours before the fight and was forced to rehydrate for “medical reasons.”
“They called in the local doctor, who made him drink a bunch of fluids to see if that made him feel better. About an hour later he started feeling better. By the time he started feeling better, it was an hour to weigh-ins. … There was no time to shed the weight,” Robinson said.
BloodyElbow also posted a statement from Rumble’s Facebook page, which has since been removed, where Johnson says he could care less about all the criticism he’s been getting about missing weight since he was deathly ill from the cut.
I’m already laughing at what ppl are saying. Yeah it was for medical reason and I did what the UFC Dr Told me to do. Believe it or don’t I give a f**k cuz the ppl close to me were freaking out but I’m still alive and something like this has never happen before. Say what you want I’m still gonna do my thang. You try not having feeling in your legs and can’t move then and see how you look at life after that.
One has to ask the question: if Johnson is telling the truth about the situation, why is he being permitted to fight tomorrow?
This marks the third time in the UFC that Johnson has missed weight drastically and been fined 20 percent of his “show purse.”
Johnson, who reportedly walks around in the range of 220-230 pounds, fought Rich Clementi at a catch weight of 177.5 pounds at UFC 76 and also battled Yoshiyuki Yoshida at 176 pounds at UFC 104.
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