Irene Aldana explains weight miss for UFC 264 bout vs. Yana Kunitskaya
Irene Aldana didn’t make the mark for her 10th UFC bout.
The women’s bantamweight contender missed weight on Friday morning, registering 139.5 pounds for her main card bout against Yana Kunitskaya at Saturday’s UFC 264 pay-per-view event in Las Vegas.
Aldana (12-6 MMA, 5-4 UFC) was 3.5 pounds over the bantamweight limit for non-title fights. The bout against Kunitskaya (14-5 MMA, 4-2 UFC) will go on as scheduled, but Aldana has been forced to forfeit 30 percent of her purse to Kunitskaya as a penalty for the weight miss.
Shortly after weigh-ins, Aldana took to Instagram to apologize to her opponent and explain what went wrong in her weight cut, as it was her first time failing to make weight in her five years in the UFC.
“In all my career this is the first time I had missed weight, I tried hard and push my body to the limit. But it stopped sweating, Got my menstrual cycle during fight week and I’m sure my body stopped because of that.
“I want to apologize to my opponent Yana Kunitskaya and her team. I would never do this to take advantage in a fight. I apologize too to my team, to the UFC, and our followers.”
Aldana is coming off a decision loss to Holly Holm back in October. Prior to that, the Mexican fighter was on a two-fight winning streak and 5-1 in her past six UFC outings.
Below is Aldana’s statement on her weight miss: