The highly anticipated Combat8 match-up between Lightweights Ben Wall and Bernardo “Trekko” Magalhaes has been scrapped. News of the cancellation came first from Ben Wall on social media before promotion confirming the news later.
The reason posted by Wall was due to a ‘registration issue,’ with the Combat Sports Authority which oversees the the sport in the state of New South Wales. Wall posted:
“My fight has been cancelled. After I woke up at 5:45am to cut 7kg in my bath at home and feel like s**t all day and at the airport on the plane… get to the weigh ins with my blood reports as O always do and make weight as I always do and afterwards while I am sitting down re hydrating they come over to tell me I am not fighting due to registration issues. We also spent $140 on costumes for my ring entrance. I am absolutely heartbroken and now broke too. Trained so hard for this one. That’s my life. Put all my heart into it and it is taken away at the last minute AFTER the weigh ins. Still I am hopeful they let me fight and will be ready tomorrow either way.”
Understand that registration needs to be adhered to, but the question has to be asked as to why the issue was not addressed weeks ago when the fight was first announced. Not the day of the weigh-in! Did someone from the Combat Sports Authority pick up the phone on Monday to advise that they were still waiting on registration papers? It is a bit hard to try and correct something when you don’t know there is something wrong. Again this is speculation and perhaps the authority did make numerous attempts but fact is someone somewhere didn’t do their job and the fighters and fans miss out on a great fight.
Combat8 posted on their facebook page “We weighed the guys in first in hope that we may have had the opportunity to get the decision overturned after we run all the fighters through.
“Unfortunately the CSA wouldn’t budge and we were told that the decision had been made and there was nothing we could do about it,” the promotion added.
Today’s drama didn’t end there for Combat8 with reports indicating that there were problems with fighters making weight. Jessy Rose came in 3 kilograms over for her fight against Eileen Forrest while American Donnie Lester missed weight by 8 kilograms according to his opponent Ben Edwards. No news if the C8 Heavyweight title will still be up for grabs in that bout.
Combat8-3 goes down on Saturday night at the Big Top in Luna Park, Sydney with the event being headlined by Richie Vaculik taking on American fighter Charlie Alaniz. Combat8 bouts are contested under modified rules, with includes only 30-seconds ground work per round.
