Gabriel Benitez says Jonathan Pearce “quit” after not accepting catchweight fight at UFC Vegas 25
UFC featherweight Gabriel Benitez said that Jonathan Pearce “quit” after not accepting a catchweight fight against him at UFC Vegas 25.
Benitez and Pearce were set to collide in a featherweight bout at tonight’s UFC Vegas 25 card, but the fight was scratched after Benitez badly missed weight, coming in at 150.5lbs, well above the non-title featherweight limit of 146lbs. However, it seemed like there was a chance the fight would still be on and that Benitez would give up a part of his purse to Pearce to make it happen, but the fight was canceled after Pearce understandably turned down fighting a heavier opponent.
Taking to his social media after missing weight and seeing his fight canceled, Benitez explained what went wrong on the scales. According to “Moggly,” the UFC and Benitez knew that he was struggling to make weight and offered Pearce a catchweight of 150lbs last week. However, Benitez says that Pearce turned that down, and he blasted his opponent for not agreeing to it.
First of all i want to apologize for the inconvenient of my weight this morning, UFC and my opponent knew about the medical issues i was having since one week ago and they were offered a catchweight in 150 , they turned it down and decided to go all the way to 146 knowing that there was a chance we wouldn’t make it instead of being a Real fighter and take it at 150. This morning they accepted the bout at 150 and a little extra cash for me being .5lb above the 150 , and then all of sudden after the face off they decided to QUIT. Yes we did not make the 146 mark but tried at all costs to keep the fight alive and they just did everything to not fight me. What goes around comes around if you fight long enough, been fighting for 15 years and never had issues until this camp, see you down the road and I hope it’s soon enough.
Do you agree with Gabriel Benitez that Jonathan Pearce was in the wrong for not accepting the fight?
