Vizcaya Backs Out of RFA 39 Featured Bout After Badly Missing Weight

Joseph Gigliotti is one of the best young middleweight prospects in MMA and his talent was supposed to be on full display of one of the featured bouts of RFA 39. But after the undefeated Arizonan flew to the Chicagoland area for Thursday’s weigh-ins, everything fell apart.

Local fighter Daniel Vizcaya, a cast member of “The Ultimate Fighter” Season 19, missed the contracted weight by seven pounds. RFA officials offered Vizcaya the allotted two hours try and make the 185-pound limit, but he declined. Gigliotti and his team, according to a promotion official, still wanted to take the fight with the weight disadvantage, but Vizcaya, a veteran of both Bellator and M-1 Global, refused to take the fight.

Promotion officials scrambled to find a suitable replacement but on less than 24 hours’ notice, his fight was scrapped entirely. As of press time, it’s unknown what sort of penalty, if any, the RFA will enforce on Vizcaya.

Gigliotti’s Power MMA teammate Luis Saldana wasn’t as unfortunate, but the weigh-in for his featherweight clash with Mike Santiago wasn’t a smooth one, either. Santiago badly missed weight, coming in officially at 153.2 pounds, well over the 145-pound weight limit, but the fight will still go on. Saldana agreed to fight anyway and Santiago will be fined a percentage of his purse, though RFA officials wouldn’t reveal the exact amount or whether Saldana will be awarded any of it.

RFA 39 goes down from inside the Hammond Civic Center in Hammond, Ind., just east of Chicago. It will be televised live on AXS TV beginning at 10 p.m. ET/7 p.m. PT and will be anchored by the featherweight championship between titleholder Raoni Barcelos and Bobby Moffett.