Pearl Gonzalez makes her debut in the UFC tonight, but after her initial medicals the fight was almost pulled from the card. The commission informed her she wouldn’t be fighting because of her breast implants, although fighters with implants have not only fought in the past, but actually held the championship belt.
This fight in taking place in New York, and in that state breast implants are not allowed, they informed her.
When asked how she felt about having this be such a big story leading up to the fight, she said:
“I don’t think I wanted the world to know about my surgery like this…” – Pearl Gonzalez
They ended up getting things sorted out, and this obscure rule that nobody had even heard of wasn’t going to cause her fight to be cancelled. Could you imagine training your whole life for your UFC debut, then at the very last minute you’re told you can’t compete due to a rule that nobody’s even heard of, that is unique to New York?
MMA was only recently been legalized in New York, of course, so there are going to be some kinks to iron out.
“I’m going to show the world that not only do I have breast implants, but I am a talented fighter.”
That’s the spirit. Pearl Gonzalez makes her debut tonight on the main card.
The discussed this whole fiasco as a press scrum, which you can check out:
Weird situation, it’s the type of thing that happens once, and will probabally never happen again. It’s a growing pain for the sport, since this was never an issue a few years ago when it was only men in the UFC, but women have been in the UFC for long enough, and there are several prominent women’s MMA fighters with implants, so this is most likely due to an issue with a commission in NY who just aren’t used to hosting MMA events and haven’t come across this before.
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