The controversial fight between Gabi Garcia and Shinobu Kandori took an odd twist on Thursday.
The six-time jiu-jitsu world champion stepped on the scale to take on 53-year-old Kandori, who hasn’t competed in mixed martial arts in 17 years. News broke that Garcia had missed weight by 12kg (26.4 pounds) for their 95kg-fight (209.4 pounds) and the bout was off of the Dec. 29 card.
Speaking with MMA Fighting hours after, Garcia said that she only got to Japan a day before the official weigh-ins, and claims that she missed weight by 8.8 pounds.
The promotion has yet to make an official announcement if the bout will in fact be cancelled.
The Brazilian fought twice in 2017, but both of those contests ended in no-contests. Garcia took on Megumi Yabushita in a Shootboxing match in July, but landed an illegal soccer kick seconds into the first round. She came back to the Rizin ring months later to face Oksana Gagloeva, but Gagloeva was poked in the eye at the 16-second mark and couldn’t continue.
Check below the complete cards for Rizin’s upcoming events at the Saitama Super Arena in Japan.
Dec. 29
Satoru Kitaoka vs. Kiichi Kunimoto
Shizuka Sugiyama vs. Kana Watanabe
Kizaemon Saiga vs. Kai Asakura
Anthony Birchak vs. Jae Hoon Moon
Hiroyuki Takaya vs. Battaryn Azjavkhlan
Reina Miura vs. Cindy Dandois
Jiri Prochazka vs. Karl Albrektsson
Gabi Garcia vs. Shinobu Kandori
Bantamweight GP quarterfinal – Khalid Taha vs. Takafumi Otsuka
Bantamweight GP quarterfinal – Kevin Petshi vs. Shintaro Ishiwatari
Bantamweight GP quarterfinal – Ian McCall vs. Manel Kape
Bantamweight GP quarterfinal – Kyoji Horiguchi vs. Gabriel Oliveira
Dec. 31
Bantamweight GP semifinal – McCall-Kape vs. Horiguchi-Oliveira
Bantamweight GP semifinal – Taha-Otsuka vs Ishiwatari-Petshi
Kickboxing GP semifinal – Tenshin Nasukawa vs. Yuta Hamamoto
Kickboxing GP semifinal – Mitsuhisa Sunabe vs. Yamato Fujita
Women’s atomweight GP semifinal – Rena Kubota vs. Irene Rivera
Women’s atomweight GP semifinal – Maria Oliveira vs. Kanna Asakura
Yusuke Yachi vs. Takanori Gomi
Shinju Auclair vs. Chelsea Lagrasse
Mirko Cro Cop vs. Tsuyoshi Kosaka
Kickboxing GP final
Women’s atomweight GP final
Bantamweight GP final
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