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Marlon Moraes almost pulled out of Cody Bollinger bout after Bollinger missed weight, WSOF told him "we need this fight"
Sep 16, 2014 - 3:40:05 PM Marlon Moraes almost pulled out of Cody Bollinger bout after Bollinger missed weight, WSOF told him "we need this fight"

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By: Jamie Penick, MMATorch Editor-in-Chief

The World Series of Fighting backed themselves into a corner last week ahead of WSOF 13, and ultimately had to make a fairly dubious request of their Bantamweight Champion Marlon Moraes.

Moraes was originally scheduled to defend his title against Josh Hill, but the event didn't have much else scheduled for the WSOF to sell. When Hill went out, the WSOF needed Moraes to remain on the card, so they found him a late replacement opponent in Cody Bollinger and set up a catchweight at 140 lbs.

Unfortunately, Bollinger didn't even come close to hitting that mark, as he got to 147 lbs. before he couldn't cut anymore. But instead of scrapping their main event at the last minute, Moraes said this week that WSOF officials practically begged him to accept the fight anyway.

"On the contract, we agreed for 140, then when I got there for the weigh-in [WSOF President] Ray Sefo and [matchmaker] Ali Abdelaziz pulled me to the side," Moraes explained in an interview with MMAJunkie.com. "[They] said, 'Hey man, he's not making 140, man. He's going to make 147. Please man, we need this fight. You need the fight and you want to fight. What do you want to do?'"

"I had one hour to put the six pounds back on, then I was 146 and he was 147. If he's 147 [at weigh-ins], [at the fight] he's going to be very big... I thought, 'I don't want to come here and not fight. I want to fight."

Moraes would go on to win the fight, dominating Bollinger before scoring a second round submission.

Penick's Analysis: This is the type of situation that can lead to unnecessary losses on a fighter's record. Thankfully for Moraes he was simply the better fighter, and he picked up the win, but he was put in an unfair situation by the promoters. They put it on him to accept that fight because of their own screwups in booking the card to begin with, as they had nothing else on the card they could promote. Further, by booking Bollinger as the replacement - who has had significant issues in cutting weight - they left themselves open to this. Bollinger deserves blame for accepting a 140 lb. catchweight if he wasn't going to be able to make the weight on short notice, but it all boils down to the fact that Moraes shouldn't have been placed on that spot. Again, thankfully for him he won, and was clearly better, but other fighters aren't so lucky when similar situations happen on regional cards, and wind up in spots where they have to take a fight that's far from what they agreed to train for. It's bush league stuff, and a promotion trying to make waves as a big league organization shouldn't be pulling it.