“First and foremost, it was something that was completely unexpected” Yoel Romero opens up about his UFC release
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The Middleweight fighter Yoel Romero has been formerly released by UFC despite 3 fights being left in his original contract. Recently Romero has signed a deal with Bellator MMA and now he will compete in this promotion. According to Romero, the contract ended because of his dispute with the UFC matchmaker.
Romero was targeting to fight with the top 5 fighters of the Middleweight and Light Heavyweight division but UFC matchmakers were offering him something else. In his latest interview with ESPN Romero says, “First and foremost, it was something that was completely unexpected”
“I was already training very hard, getting ready. We were already thinking of fighting in January or February at 185 or 205. We were looking to fight with the top three in either division. My managers explained this to the presidency, the top of the UFC.”
“They wanted me to fight with Uriah Hall, Derek Brunson, and we explained to them that it didn’t make sense for me to fight with these young men. We had an idea we were chasing, the world title. The way we were training, making it happen, we knew that we had one or two fights and then we would go for the belt.”
“Our thought was that fighting any of these guys that are in the back of the roster, that it was taking steps backward, not forward.”
Romero didn’t like the match-ups UFC was offering him
Yoel Romero also spoke that he was being offered completely different matches from what he wants. He added, “My managers were back and forth non-stop with the matchmakers and with Dana White, and there was no accordance, they came back to us with an offer to fight Johnny Walker at 205.”
“At 205, we wanted whomever triumphed between Marreta Santos or Glover Teixeira. The managers were initially saying we wanted to fight with Dominick Reyes, Glover Teixeira, ‘Marreta,’ or Anthony Smith”
“and it was kind of like a back and forth, kind of quiet on their end, and once they reached back it was to let me know that we couldn’t come to an agreement, and they were going to commit to the release.”
“I would have never expected this, I was training not extra hard, but training with an intensity that I was going to run through my next two fights, get another shot at Izzy ,and once I was in there, I was going to take his head off.”
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Shivansh Thakur
(1173 Articles Published)