''UFC Fight Night: Machida vs. Romero'' (also known as ''UFC Fight Night 70'') was a
mixed martial arts
Mixed martial arts (MMA), sometimes referred to as cage fighting, no holds barred (NHB), and ultimate fighting, and originally referred to as Vale Tudo is a full-contact combat sport based on striking, grappling and ground fighting, inc ...
event held on June 27, 2015, at the
Seminole Hard Rock Hotel and Casino in
Hollywood, Florida
Hollywood is a city in southern Broward County, Florida, United States, located between Fort Lauderdale and Miami. As of July 1, 2019, Hollywood had a population of 154,817. Founded in 1925, the city grew rapidly in the 1950s and 1960s, and is now ...
.
Background
The event was originally expected to be held at the
Ginásio do Ibirapuera
Ginásio do Ibirapuera (officially named Ginásio Estadual Geraldo José de Almeida)
is an indoor arena, indo ...
in
São Paulo
São Paulo (, ; Portuguese for 'Saint Paul') is the most populous city in Brazil, and is the capital of the state of São Paulo, the most populous and wealthiest Brazilian state, located in the country's Southeast Region. Listed by the GaWC a ...
,
Brazil
Brazil ( pt, Brasil; ), officially the Federative Republic of Brazil (Portuguese: ), is the largest country in both South America and Latin America. At and with over 217 million people, Brazil is the world's fifth-largest country by area ...
. However, on May 15, the event was moved to the
Seminole Hard Rock Hotel and Casino in
Hollywood, Florida
Hollywood is a city in southern Broward County, Florida, United States, located between Fort Lauderdale and Miami. As of July 1, 2019, Hollywood had a population of 154,817. Founded in 1925, the city grew rapidly in the 1950s and 1960s, and is now ...
.
The fight card was also expected to feature the lightweight and bantamweight finals of ''
The Ultimate Fighter: Brazil 4''. This was the first time an Ultimate Fighter Brazil Finale event would be held outside of Brazil. However, as the event approached, several international fighters experienced travel restrictions due to technical issues within the
Bureau of Consular Affairs
The Bureau of Consular Affairs (CA) is a bureau of the United States Department of State reporting to the under secretary of state for management. The mission of the Bureau is to administer laws, formulate regulations and implement policies rel ...
division of the
U.S. State Department
The United States Department of State (DOS), or State Department, is an executive department of the U.S. federal government responsible for the country's foreign policy and relations. Equivalent to the ministry of foreign affairs of other nati ...
which produces
travel visas. The issue led to a major altering of the card as multiple fights were postponed.
The lightweight and bantamweight finals of ''The Ultimate Fighter: Brazil 4'', was instead contested on August 1, 2015 at
UFC 190
''UFC 190: Rousey vs. Correia'' was a mixed martial arts event held on August 1, 2015, at the HSBC Arena in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
Background
The event was headlined by a UFC Women's Bantamweight Championship bout between former UFC Bantamweigh ...
.
A welterweight bout between
Rick Story
Rick Thomas Story (born August 28, 1984) is a retired American mixed martial artist. A professional from 2007-2018, he last competed for the Professional Fighters League, but is better known for his 19-fight tenure with the UFC.
Background
Story ...
and
Erick Silva
Erick Vinicius Silva (born June 21, 1984) is a Brazilian former mixed martial artist who competed in the Welterweight division. A professional from 2005 till 2019, he competed for the Ultimate Fighting Championship, Bellator MMA, and Jungle Fight, ...
was expected to serve as the main event. However, after the initial venue change, the bout was moved to a co-featured slot and the event was headlined by a middleweight bout between former
UFC Light Heavyweight champion
Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) champions are fighters who have won UFC championships.
Historical notes
At the time of the UFC's inception in 1993, mixed martial arts was not sanctioned in the United States, and did not include weight classe ...
Lyoto Machida
(born 30 May 1978), is a Brazilian professional mixed martial artist and karateka, who currently competes in the Light heavyweight division. He formerly competed for the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC), where he was a former UFC Light ...
and
2000 Summer Olympics silver medalist in
freestyle wrestling
Freestyle wrestling is a style of wrestling originated from Great Britain and the United States. Along with Greco-Roman, it is one of the two styles of wrestling contested in the Olympic Games. American high school and men's college wrestling ...
Yoel Romero
Yoel Romero Palacio (born April 30, 1977) is a Cuban professional mixed martial artist and former freestyle wrestler. He currently competes in the Light Heavyweight division for Bellator MMA. Romero formerly competed in the Middleweight division ...
.
Also affected by the visa issues, Silva was pulled from the event and his bout against Story was rescheduled for
UFC Fight Night: Holloway vs. Oliveira.
A light heavyweight bout between
Nikita Krylov
Nikita Andreyevich Krylov (born March 7, 1992) is a Ukrainian-Russian mixed martial artist who competes in the light heavyweight division of the Ultimate Fighting Championship. A professional since 2012, he has also competed for M-1 Global. As o ...
and
Marcos Rogério de Lima
Marcos Rogério de Lima (born May 25, 1985) is a Brazilian mixed martial artist who competes in the heavyweight division of the Ultimate Fighting Championship. A professional since 2009, he formerly competed for Strikeforce, Shooto, and was a co ...
was briefly linked to
UFC Fight Night 69
The Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) is an American mixed martial arts (MMA) promotion company based in Las Vegas, Nevada. It is owned and operated by Zuffa, a wholly owned subsidiary of Endeavor Group Holdings. It is the largest MMA ...
. However, the pairing was expected to take place at this event. Subsequently, the pairing was postponed again as de Lima faced visa issues.
A featherweight bout between
Rani Yahya
Rani Ahmad Yahya (born September 12, 1984) is a Brazilian mixed martial artist and BJJ practitioner. He won the 66 kg division of the prestigious ADCC Submission Wrestling World Championship in April 2007. He currently fights in t ...
and
Masanori Kanehara
Masanori Kanehara (born November 18, 1982) is a Japanese mixed martial artist currently competing the Bantamweight division in DEEP and Rizin FF. A professional competitor since 2003, Kanehara has formerly competed for World Victory Road, K-1, ...
also planned for the event was shifted to the
UFC Fight Night 71
''UFC Fight Night: Mir vs. Duffee'' (also known as ''UFC Fight Night 71'') was a mixed martial arts event held on July 15, 2015, at the Valley View Casino Center in San Diego, California.
Background
The event was headlined by a heavyweight bout b ...
event on July 15, 2015.
Chas Skelly
Chas Lucas Skelly (born May 11, 1985) is an American retired mixed martial artist who competed in the featherweight division of the Ultimate Fighting Championship. A professional since 2009, he has also competed for Bellator MMA and Legacy Fighti ...
was briefly linked to a bout with
Hacran Dias
Hacran Dias (born 16 May 1984) is a Brazilian mixed martial artist who formerly competed in the featherweight division of the Ultimate Fighting Championship. He is ranked #5 in the ACA lightweight rankings. In 2015, Dias was the #9 featherweig ...
at the event. However, Skelly was pulled from the card due to illness and was replaced by
Levan Makashvili
Levan Makashvili ( ka, ლევან მაყაშვილი}; born January 7, 1989) is a Georgian-American mixed martial artist currently competing in the Lightweight division of Absolute Championship Akhmat. A professional competitor sinc ...
.
A welterweight bout between
Viscardi Andrade
Viscardi Andrade Guimarães (born 8 March 1984) is a Brazilian mixed martial artist who competes in the Welterweight division of Taura MMA. A professional competitor since 2006, he was also a contestant on The Ultimate Fighter: Brazil 2 before ...
and Andreas Ståhl was scrapped as Ståhl suffered an injury in the week leading up to the event.
Promotional newcomer Lewis Gonzalez missed weight on his first attempt at the weigh-ins, coming in 3 lb overweight at 174 lb. After having made no attempts to cut further, he was fined 20 percent of his fight purse, which went to
Leandro Silva.
In a controversial post-fight interview, Yoel Romero seemed to express disagreement with the
Obergefell v. Hodges
''Obergefell v. Hodges'', ( ), is a landmark LGBT rights case in which the Supreme Court of the United States ruled that the fundamental right to marry is guaranteed to same-sex couples by both the Due Process Clause and the Equal Protection ...
supreme court ruling. However, during the post fight press conference and subsequent interviews the following day, Romero denied referring to gay marriage and apologized for his comments while maintaining that they were misunderstood and taken out of context.
Results
Bonus awards
The following fighters were awarded $50,000 bonuses:
*Fight of the Night: Lorenz Larkin vs. Santiago Ponzinibbio
*Performance of the Night: Yoel Romero and Thiago Santos
Reported payout
The following is the reported payout to the fighters as reported to the Florida State Boxing Commission. It does not include sponsor money or "locker room" bonuses often given by the UFC and also do not include the UFC's traditional "fight night" bonuses.
*Yoel Romero: $66,000 ($33,000 win bonus) def. Lyoto Machida: $200,000
*Lorenz Larkin: $66,000 ($33,000 win bonus) def. Santiago Ponzinibbio: $10,000
*Antônio Carlos Júnior: $34,000 ($17,000 win bonus) def. Eddie Gordon: $15,000
*Thiago Santos: $32,000 ($16,000 win bonus) def. Steve Bossé: $10,000
*Hacran Dias: $26,000 ($13,000 win bonus) def. Levan Makasvili: $12,000
*Alex Oliveira: $24,000 ($12,000 win bonus) def. Joe Merritt: $10,000
*Leandro Silva: $28,000 ($13,000 win bonus) def. Lewis Gonzalez: $8,000 ^
*Tony Sims: $20,000 ($10,000 win bonus) def. Steve Montgomery: $10,000
*Sirwan Kakai: $16,000 ($8,000 win bonus) def. Danny Martinez: $12,000
^ ''Gonzalez was fined $2,000, 20 percent of his purse for failing to make the required weight for his fight with Leandro Silva. That money was issued to Silva, officials confirmed.''
See also
*
List of UFC events
This is a list of events held and scheduled by the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC), a mixed martial arts promotion based in the United States. UFC's first event, UFC 1, took place on November 12, 1993. Each UFC event contains several fight ...
*
2015 in UFC
References
{{UFC Events
UFC Fight Night
Events in Hollywood, Florida
Mixed martial arts in Florida
Sports in Hollywood, Florida
2015 in mixed martial arts
2015 in sports in Florida
June 2015 sports events in the United States