Bryan Battle knew missing weight in the UFC would come at a cost.
Battle was set to face Nursulton Ruziboev in a middleweight bout at UFC 319 earlier this month, but things unraveled on the scale. Coming in four pounds over the 186-pound limit, the American missed weight for the second fight in a row, forcing the matchup to be scrapped before it could even begin.
“The Butcher” racked up three weight misses during his UFC run, and just a week after his most recent fight was scrapped, the promotion decided to part ways with him.
Battle secured his UFC contract with a second-round submission of Andre Petroski in the middleweight semifinals of The Ultimate Fighter 29 back in August 2021. From there, “The Butcher” carved out a solid run inside the Octagon, compiling a 7-1 record with one no contest, highlighted by five stoppage victories and a pair of Performance of the Night bonuses.
During a recent interview with MMA Fighting, Bryan Battle opened up about his release from the UFC. The 30-year-old North Carolina native admitted that while he expected repercussions, he still held out hope for another shot with the promotion. However, he accepted full responsibility for how things unfolded.
So I definitely knew that it was a possibility, you know what I’m saying?,” Battle said. "I definitely thought it was something that could happen and it was justified. It’s not something that I’m going to bitch and moan about at all, but I’m not going to lie, I did think that they weren’t going to cut me, you know what I’m saying? I didn’t think that that was going to happen, but that’s what happened. That’s a result of my own actions.
After parting ways with the UFC, “The Butcher” has found a new home in hybrid combat sports promotion Dirty Boxing. Bryan Battle is slated to make his debut this Friday, August 29, at DBX 3, where he’ll collide with Derik de Freitas in a middleweight showdown at The Hangar in Miami, Florida.
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