On Tuesday, March 3, three days after the flyweight title fight disaster between Deiveson Figueiredo and Joseph Benavidez, Dana White touched on what’s next for the division.
It was one thing after another last week as far as the flyweight title fight was concerned. For one, the fight was for the vacant flyweight championship that now former double champ, Henry Cejudo, released in late December of 2019.
On weigh-in day, Figueiredo missed weight, which resulted in Benavidez being the only competitor eligible to win the title on fight night.
In the second round of the fight, there was a clash of heads between Figueiredo and Benavidez, which opened up a large cut on the top of Benavidez’s forehead that immediately started gushing blood. Moments later, Figueiredo landed a hard shot on Benavidez that sat him down on the canvas. He followed the knockdown up with ground and pound strikes and won via TKO.
At the end of the night, the title remained vacant, which caused a lot of people to question whether this would be the end of the flyweight division, yet again.
During a media scrum for UFC 248: Adesanya vs. Romero, White was asked about what the future holds for the division and this is what he had to say.
“Listen, that was a great fight – great fight. Absolutely, you know, I think the headbutt had a lot to do with the knockout too. Um, not taking anything away from (Figueiredo), it was a great fight, but I think you have to do that fight again. You know, first of all he didn’t make weight, Joe still fought him. There was the headbutt, so a lot of controversy in that fight, but it was a great fight. Both guys came to fight. Um, I’m sure you guys know how I feel about him not making weight. Um, but we’ll do it again. They both deserve it,” said White. “Will it be a title fight? Yeah,” he added.
This comes as great news for the UFC flyweights, who were most likely worried about their job security in the future as well.
White did say that he still plans on having a matchmakers meeting with Mick Maynard and other UFC matchmakers this week, where they will ultimately decide what’s next for the division.
