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Joseph Benavidez is not at all bothered about his opponent missing weight ahead of their clash for the vacant Flyweight title on Saturday night's UFC Fight Night event.
Deiveson Figueiredo weighed in at 127.5 pounds, which is 2.5 more than the allowed cut-off, leaving Benavidez to be the only fighter of the two eligible for winning the Championship belt upon victory.
According to a report by MMA Junkie, Benavidez was always going to take the fight irrespective of the circumstances, but now the situation would go on to make him richer than he was supposed to be.
Joseph Benavidez: He was never going to win anyway
Benavidez said that he heard rumors about the Brazilian missing weight, but no one approached him as it was fairly well known that it did not matter to him. He explained that his wife broke the news to him, and he took a quick and easy decision about what to do with it - take the fight and 30 percent of Figueiredo's fight purse.
"… (My wife) was answering the calls and she was talking in a way like she wasn’t trying to say something. I could feel her stress. She’s like, ‘Yeah, I’ve got to go. Well, he’s sleeping right now. Nope, we’ll talk about it later.’ Then she came up to me and was like, ‘Look, your opponent missed the weight.’ I was just like, ‘OK.’ I was like, ‘Well, I’ll still fight him but let’s get, like, 30 percent.'"
However, Benavidez admitted to making it harder for his opponent by showing hesitation in taking the fight. He asked Figueiredo to make it to 126 pounds before there was still an hour left for the ceremonial weigh-ins, but that did not happen either, which made Benavidez lose respect for the fighter.
"You have to lose respect for somebody in that regard. They have the biggest opportunity of their life there and they squander it like that."
But Benavidez thinks him missing the weight will have no such effect on the outcome of the fight, since Figueiredo would never have won the belt anyway.
"It's just more conviction that he wasn't going to ever win the belt anyway. Obviously, I was the only one who was going to win it. I'm the only one who came to win it. It doesn't change what I'm going to do... It's like, 'You're not going to stop me from what I came to do.' That was never a question. Of course you lose respect for the guy."
The fight is going to take place at UFC Fight Night 169 at Chartway Arena in Norfolk, Virginia on Saturday, February 29.
