The regional mixed martial arts scene can be great and it can also be a terrible experience. Thursday was a terrible experience for American Top Team welterweight Steve Montgomery.
Montgomery (8-2) was scheduled to weigh-in today for his Florida Championship Fighting bout against Ralph Johnson at a sports bar in Orlando, Florida near Universal Studios. However, the promoter canceled the event on Thursday afternoon and it left all of the fighters on the card without a payday.
This was supposed to be the first fight for Montgomery since his health scare during the taping of The Ultimate Fighter. The health scare caused UFC President Dana White to remove Montgomery from the reality show. White told the fighter to take a fight on the regional scene, prove he can make weight, get a win, and the call from the UFC would come.
With the Florida Championship Fighting card canceled, Montgomery still wanted to prove to the UFC that he could make weight. The MMA Report was there when Montgomery went to a gym in Orlando and weighed in at 171 pounds.
“It’s been a year of unfulfilled promises and nothing I have planned has gone my way,” Montgomery told The MMA Report. “The thing that sucks the most is that it’s not a lack of effort on my part or my teams part. We did everything we could. Gone through opponents and we finally got a guy [Johnson] who was going to come out and fight with me. Stand with me and it would have been an entertaining fight. I would have gotten to show my skills and then all of the sudden the promoter goes crazy literally within an hour of the weigh-in.”
“I find out that I pretty much did that weight cut for nothing. I made the weight, no problem. My nutritionist are excellent. I am just at the point that I need to fight ASAP. I do not care what weight class it is. I guarantee to Dana White this. In the last three years, I have had more opponents backing out and more fight cancelations that the UFC might have had in it’s entire history. It has been ridiculous. We can not get guys to fight me and the worse part is so many times last year, I stepped up to fight guys at heavier weight classes for no money. I fought guys out of the UFC for no money just to show myself.”
“Now when I get my chance in the UFC, I screw it up with a botched weight cut. Then I make the perfect weight cut and a psychotic promoter goes literally nuts with an hour notice. Just all of a sudden three fighters backed out of the card. He just left I say close 16 fighters just hanging. No pay. No nothing and just canceled the whole show when we got to the weigh-ins.”
This is not the first time in Montgomery’s career that an entire fight card has been canceled, but that was a completely different situation as the commission canceled the event. This was going to be a huge fight for Montgomery and could have been the fight to get him into the UFC. While the fight is not taking place, Montgomery has a message for the UFC President.
“I will do whatever it takes but at the same time, I am literally begging you Dana White,” he said. “I am begging you. Take me off this regional scene. I have had 23 guys back out since I got off the show. I have done everything in my power. I have tried to contact every show. Take me off the regional scene. I am healthy. I can make 70. I will go to 85. I will go to 205. Put me in the UFC. You will get entertaining fights. I will come off to take peoples heads off or get mine taken off int he process. You will not get boring fights and I will talk myself up. People will watch these fights. I am begging you Dana, take me off this regional scene.”