Aiemann Zahabi was very close to completing his bantamweight weight cut when he received the news that his scheduled fight against Jose Aldo at UFC 315 would no longer be contested at that weight class.
During the official weigh-ins for UFC 315 on Friday, it was announced that the bout between Aldo and Zahabi was being shifted to featherweight. Multiple sources with knowledge of the promotion’s plans confirmed that this increase in weight limit was a result of a UFC doctor advising Aldo to stop cutting weight on Thursday night, as he was still nine pounds over the bantamweight mark. Although the former featherweight champion appeared visibly depleted on the scale, the fight is still set to proceed.
Speaking with UFC’s Canadian broadcast partner SportsNet, Zahabi shared his reaction to the change, stating that he was less than one pound away from reaching the bantamweight limit when he was informed.
“So I was cutting my weight and I just got into the blankets this morning, and I was 136.8 pounds,” Zahabi said. “Firas [Zahabi] was receiving the text and the calls to stop cutting. `Jose can’t make weight, he’s 145. There’s no way he’s going to make the weight,` and the commission won’t allow, in Montreal, a five-pound weight difference. So there’s no 20 percent, we have to do a featherweight fight. We can’t do a bantamweight fight. A bantamweight fight option is off the table completely.”
Following the announcement, Zahabi also posted a video on Friday morning showing his weight just under 137 pounds.
Given that the fight was at risk of being cancelled entirely and had to be moved to featherweight, the usual penalties for missing weight would not apply. Zahabi revealed that his team had to renegotiate the terms of his contract for the planned fight.
“So then we got to think, we got to renegotiate… we could say no,” Zahabi stated, acknowledging that the fight was essentially off due to the five-pound difference.
He recounted advice from his brother: “What would X do? — Xavier Alaoui — `What would X do?` He said, `He would renegotiate and take the fight.`” As a result, they negotiated with Sean Shelby and accepted an offer, confirming the fight is still on.
