Jessica-Rose Clark and Andrea Lee were supposed to meet on the preliminary card of UFC On Fox 31, but issues with weight cutting affected the well-being of Clark and the bout was canceled.
The fighter, who has exclusively competed at flyweight in the UFC, is moving to bantamweight from here on out.
Clark issued the following statement via a video posted on Youtube:
“I feel bad for Andrea. She’s had a really tough year as well and I know she was relying on that money. I’m just grateful, I got told that UFC still paid her her show fee so I’m glad she still got some money out of it and I’ve apologized to her personally and spoken to her about it. I know people have been asking about whether there’s a chance of her and I getting a rematch in the future, but honestly I’m going to go back to 135. I’ve already spoken to my team about it, I’ve spoken to my nutritionist, I’ve spoken to Mick Maynard about it and every single one of them is aligned with the idea that I need to go back to ‘35. I’ve never missed weight at ‘35, I’ve never even come close to missing. I feel good at ‘35. The reason I went down to ‘25 was because of coaches that I had who were telling me that I was too small to be a bantamweight and that I needed to be a fly, but I’ve tried four times now. I missed in my UFC debut and even though I took that on 10 days’ notice and I got really close, that’s still — I know it’s no excuse — the next couple of times were really, really f*cking hard. And it was getting to the stage where my whole camp, my primary focus was just making flyweight. I felt a little sick, but nothing like the cut for (UFC Fight Night 124 in) St. Louis. So I was like, I feel better than I have in the past, so I’m good. Went back up to the room, went to the bathroom and apparently passed out. My coach, Walker (Vivian), came and found me and panicked ‘cause he thought he’d killed me and took me straight to ER and they put me on an IV. Then when I met with the UFC doctor, the fight got called off.”
This is not Clark’s first venture in the bantamweight division, as she has previously captured the Roshambo MMA Women’s Bantamweight Title in July of 2014. There is no word when Clark will make her UFC Women’s Bantamweight Division debut, but was last seen in action earlier this year at UFC Fight Night Singapore.
