Yoel Romero’s Corner Threatened to Throw in the Towel at UFC 225
Ultimate Fighting Championship middleweight Yoel Romero took on current champion Robert Whittaker earlier this month as the pay-per-view headliner at UFC 225 in another “Fight of the Year” contender. The bout was originally scheduled for the middleweight title, although due to Romero missing weight by 0.2 pounds it was relegated to a non-title fight.
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What was most surprising was Romero’s ability to conserve his energy as the fight played out, even though he was visibly exhausted and unleashed a barrage of strikes on Whittaker in the later rounds, looking to end the fight.
One of Romero’s trainers at American Top Team, Conan Silveira shed some light on why we saw an energetic Romero especially in the final round. Silveira recently spoke to Combate and said that Romero’s teammate Jorge Masvidal told an exhausted Romero to focus and listen to his corner or else he’d stop the fight (via MMAIndia.com):
“It was a
comment made by [Jorge] Masvidal who was in Romero’s corner. They
noticed that Romero was exhausted and that he wasn’t really
listening to anybody or paying attention, that’s when Masvidal told
him ‘my friend, it’s only five more minutes, but if you continue
this way, I´m gonna throw in the towel.’ When Romero heard the word
towel, he stood up quickly, took a deep breath, walked around and
then he was better and put that final pressure.”
Romero and his team are now planning on suing the Illinois Athletic Commission as a result of not allowing him the two promised hours for his second weight-cutting attempt. Romero originally weighed in at 186 pounds on his first attempt and was told he had two hours to meet the required limit, although the commission stopped Romero after just one hour. Romero subsequently weighed in at 185.2 pounds.
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