Formerly a featherweight, Zarah Fairn was expected to face newcomer Josiane Nunes this weekend at UFC Vegas 24, in a bantamweight contest.
With the UFC all but disposing of its featherweight division (Megan Anderson is gone, and the only featherweight fight booked currently is Felicia Spencer vs. Danyelle Wolf), bantamweight was really the only move for the French fighter. But Friday morning at the UFC Vegas 24 weigh-ins, disaster struck.
Fairn (6-4) hit the scales heavy, coming in at a whopping 147lbs — which would have been heavy even for featherweight. A UFC.com update that had gone largely unnoticed noted that the bout had been moved to a 139lb catchweight, but that means that Fairn still missed the mark by a full 8lbs.
Opponent Josiane Nunes weighed in at 136lbs Friday morning, right at the bantamweight limit.
Nunes was expected to be making her octagon debut in the bout, which will now have to wait. UFC officials confirmed Friday that the fight had been removed from the card, “due to weight management issues with Zarah Fairn.”
UFC Vegas 24 (UFC on ESPN 22) will now move forward with eleven bouts. A previously scheduled fight between Ricardo Ramos and Bill Algeo was dropped from the card earlier this week due to a positive COVID-19 test.
Currently, UFC Vegas 24 looks as follows:
Main Card
Robert Whittaker vs. Kelvin Gastelum
Jeremy Stephens vs. Drakkar Klose
Andrei Arlovski vs. Chase Sherman
Abdul Razak Alhassan vs. Jacob Malkoun
Luis Peña vs. Alexander Munoz
Preliminary Card
Tracy Cortez vs. Justine Kish
Alexander Romanov vs. Juan Espino
Jessica Penne vs. Lupita Godinez
Gerald Meerschaert vs. Bartosz Fabiński
Tony Gravely vs. Anthony Birchak
Austin Hubbard vs. Dakota Bush
