Yoel Romero Misses Weight, Cannot Win Interim Title at UFC 221

Yoel Romero has missed weight and will now be ineligible to compete for the interim middleweight title in the main event at UFC 221 on Saturday night in Australia.

Romero came in at 187.7 pounds — 2.7 pounds over the title fight limit — and that was after he was given an additional two hours to cut the weight following his initial step on the scale at 188.3 pounds.

Obviously, Romero was not able to drop much weight between his initial weigh-in and the final weigh-in nearly two hours later.

Romero missing weight means he is no longer able to win the UFC interim middleweight title in his fight against Luke Rockhold, who came in at 185 pounds for the main event.

Hours after the weigh-ins ended, Rockhold came to an agreement with the UFC where he would be paid 30-percent of Romero’s purse as a penalty for missing weight.

This situation mirrors what unfolded at UFC 206 in 2016 when Anthony Pettis failed to make weight for his interim featherweight title fight against Max Holloway. Pettis was allowed to fight but he was no longer able to capture the title with a win. Holloway ended up defeating Pettis to become interim champion.

The same scenario is set up for UFC 221 where Rockhold would win the interim middleweight title if he defeats Romero. If Romero wins, he will not become champion and there’s no word if he would still go onto face current champion Robert Whittaker in the future.

Romero did accept this fight on short notice with his original bout scheduled for two weeks later at the UFC on FOX card in Orlando. Still, Romero wasn’t able to make the weight and now UFC 221 undergoes anothe dramatic change.

This is just the latest disaster to strike UFC 221 after Whittaker was originally scheduled in the main event but then was forced to drop out due to injury.

The remaining fighters on the UFC 221 fight card were able to make weight. Here are the full weigh-in results for UFC 221: Romero vs. Rockhold.

UFC 221: ROMERO vs. ROCKHOLD

MAIN EVENT: Luke Rockhold (185) vs. Yoel Romero (187.7)*

Curtis Blaydes (255.5) vs. Mark Hunt (265)

Cyril Asker (243.5) vs. Tai Tuivasa (263.5)

Li Jingliang (170) vs. Jake Matthews (170.5)

Tyson Pedro (205) vs. Saparbek Safarov (204.5)

UFC 221 PRELIMS (8 p.m. ET on FS1)

Damien Brown (156) vs. Dong Hyun Kim (156)

Israel Adesanya (183) vs. Rob Wilkinson (186)

Jeremy Kennedy (145) vs. Alex Volkanovski (145.5)

Jussier Formiga (126.15)+ vs. Ben Nguyen (125.5)