Conor McGregor set the tone for the official UFC 257 weigh-in on Friday.
The former two-division champion was the first fighter to step on the scale and appeared at the weight of the championship, reaching 155 pounds for Saturday’s headlamp against Dustin Poirier. Poirier also successfully hit the 156 pound mark to make the rematch official.
In the first encounter between Poirier and McGregor at UFC 178 in September 2014, McGregor defeated Poirier by technical knockout in the first round.
Main co-event lightweights Dan Hooker and Michael Chandler also successfully weighted, both reaching 156 pounds. Chandler, a three-time Bellator champion, makes his UFC debut on Saturday.
The weigh-in was dramatic, as two fighters failed to reach the balance and two others lost weight in the first attempts.
The authorities announced early in the process that Ottman Azaitar was out of his main lightweight fight against Matt Frevola due to “a recent violation of the health and safety protocols involving” Azaitar, by the UFC. Frevola also appeared and gained 155.5 pounds.
A middleweight clash between Andrew Sanchez and Makhmud Muradov is set to open the main pay-per-view card with Azaitar-Frevola’s cancellation.
Lightweight Nasrat Haqparast did not appear during the two-hour weigh-in window and he will not be competing on Saturday. Subsequently, the authorities announced that his withdrawal was due to illness. Haqparast’s scaled opponent, Arman Tsarukyan, also struggled, reaching 1.3 kg above the lightweight limit in 139.
Tsarukyan had another hour to reduce his weight, but he only managed to reduce to 57 kilograms on his second attempt. However, a fight between Frevola and Tsarukyan was combined with Tsarukayn losing 20 percent of his purse to Frevola, sources with knowledge of the change told MMA Fighting after an initial report of TSN.
Khalil Rountree also came heavy, weighing 0.5 pounds over the 205 pound limit (including a tolerance of a pound for non-title fights). He had an additional hour to gain weight and did so successfully on his second attempt, reaching 206 pounds.
See the official weigh-in results for UFC 257 below:
Primary card (ESPN + pay-per-view, 10 pm ET)
Dustin Poirier (156) against Conor McGregor (155)
Dan Hooker (156) against Michael Chandler (156)
Jessica Eye (126) against Joanne Calderwood (126)
Marina Rodriguez (116) against Amanda Ribas (116)
Makhmud Muradov (186) against Andrew Sanchez (186)
Preliminary card (ESPN, ESPN +, 8:00 pm (Eastern Time))
Matt Frevola (155.5) vs. Arman Tsarukyan (157) *
Brad Tavares (185.5) x Antonio Carlos Junior (185)
Sara McMann (135) against Julianna Pena (136)
Khalil Rountree (206) ** vs. Marcin Prachnio (205)
First Preliminaries (ESPN +, 19h Eastern Time)
Nik Lentz (150) vs. Movsar Evloev (150) – 150 pound catchweight fight
Amir Albazi (126) against Zhalgas Zhumagulov (126)
* A £ 157 catch weight fight between Frevola and Tsarukyan was arranged after his originally scheduled opponents, Ottman Azaitar and Nasrat Haqparast, were removed from the UFC 257 card. Azaitar was announced as having been removed due to “a recent breach of health and safety protocols, ”while Haqparast did not appear to weigh in during the official two-hour window.
** Rountree made weight on his second attempt after initially weighing 206.5 pounds