The champion has been facing a major problem since winning the title, which is that she has been denied a visa to travel to the United States.
Zhang commented on the matter through Instagram:
Help may be coming Zhang’s way, as the fighter commented on her Instagram post, saying that presidential candidate Tulsi Gabbard has reached out to offer help:
“Wow! I just received news from my manager that miss @tulsigabbard contacted him to try and help us. Thank you thank you miss Tulsi”
Brian Butler, who is Zhang’s manager, would issue the following statement to MMA Junkie on the matter:
“At this time we have been denied a visa to come here for the media tour next week. We believe that there was some miscommunication of some sort that caused red flags to raise to cause the denial. We are not quite sure what that is but we are working through the process as we speak. The UFC legal department is working on it and presidential candidate/congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard also responded to me and is trying to help on her end.”
There is no word yet on when Zhang is expected to make her next title defense, but the winner of this weekend’s UFC Fight Night Tampa main event is expected to get that title shot.
