The latest PFL Challenger Series card will determine who joins the regular season at 145lbs, with the division replacing women’s lightweight this season. Thus far, we know Kayla Harrison is expected to move on to the Super-Fight division, exiting the tournament format. Larissa Pacheco, who defeated Harrison in a massive upset at least year’s championships, will face Julia Budd to start the season in April.

Aspen Ladd is also in play, as are a number of fighters from last year’s lightweight division. Who could join them? The Challenger Series will determine that.

Weigh-ins for the event, which takes place in Orlando, Florida on Friday, February 3, 2023, took place Thursday, and one fighter failed to make weight. Evelyn Martins hit the scales at 146.8lbs at Thursday’s official weigh-in. That means her fight will move forward at a catchweight, with Martins coughing up twenty percent of her purse.

Full results from Thursday’s weigh-in can be found below.

PFL 2023 Challenger Series Week 2 Weigh-In Results

Amanda Leve (144.8 lbs) vs. Naranjargal Tsend-Ayush (146 lbs)
Evelyn Martins (146.8 lbs)* vs. Jeslen Michelle (145.8 lbs)
Jackie Cataline (145.6 lbs) vs. Senna van der Veerdonk (145.2 lbs)
Michelle Montague (144.8 lbs) vs. Shaquita Woods (145.8 lbs)

* Martins missed weight by 0.8 pounds, will forfeit 20% of her purse. Bout moves forward at a catchweight

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According to Woods, who was to make her pro debut in the fight, a catchweight of 160 pounds had been agreed to for the bout. But after successfully weighing in at 159lbs, her opponent withdrew from the fight, she alleges.

Woods spoke to Cageside Press backstage at the event, giving her side of what transpired in the nine days or so leading up to the show in Commerce, California.

“I had nine days’ notice to take the fight. It was supposed to be at 155, so I said ‘okay,’ but I was on my menstrual cycle so it was hard for me to get the excess water weight off,” she explained. “So we re-contracted the weight to be 160, I came in at 159. We signed the contracts and it was good to go. So today, came in, did the same-day weigh-in, I was at my max for the regain of the weight, and she still pulled out.”

Woods simply doesn’t understand why her opponent would bail despite the catchweight already being signed off on. “I’m really disappointed that I did all this work and I showed up and I was ready to go to war. It doesn’t really matter to me, I just don’t understand why would you pull out the day of?”

With a handful of amateur bouts on her record, Woods simply wants to get her professional career going, and this marks another setback.

“I will fight every day if I can, to be honest. I’ve been out here for seven years, I just want to go pro already,” she stated. “I’m training hard, I’m showing up, I’m ready. Having the last-day notice, it’s kind of getting old, everybody pulling out at the last minute. I just want something to stick so I can show everyone my skill set.”

In terms of Saturday’s fight that wasn’t, Woods had a message for her opponent. “I just wish it would have went down a little differently. If you weren’t going to take the fight, you should have just told me yesterday. You already agreed that you were going to come in with me being heavier, so I just assumed the fight was on at that point.”

“If you were going to second guess, you should have just told me then, and we could have just called it then. Because I put in a lot of work to cut that weight within that nine days.”

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