Tavares and students in Puerto Rico. Photo: Furia Magazine
Thiago Tavares’s MMA Top Combat event took place this Friday in Puerto Rico. Thiago Tavares’s under 66kg student Nazareno Malegarie now counts 16 wins in 16 fights, having won the last by unanimous decision. Now Ricardo Tirloni would have faced an athlete from Greg Jackson’s team, Henry Martinez, in the main event. He was left without an opponent, though.
“Weigh-ins were on the 4th. Henry Martinez came in 6 kg over and two hours had only lost 1 kg. We managed to prolong weigh-ins till he could make wait. At 11pm on the 4th he was still 4.5 kilograms over, or in other words had lost just 500 g in 12 hours. He didn’t do anything to drop weight and it was obvious that he did not want to fight. At 11:30 he called my coach and said he couldn’t lose anymore. So, the event organizers and the Athletic Commission canceled the fight. We did everything for the fight to go through, we tried to find another opponent, but it was impossible. Due to the lack of professionalism on the part of the athlete from Greg Jackson’s gym, I was left without a fight and was very disappointed,” said the black belt.