Juan Archuleta issues statement after missing weight, losing title ahead of Rizin 45 (VIDEO)

Juan Archuleta lost his RIZIN bantamweight title on the scales.

Archuleta stepped on the scales for his first title defense a whopping six pounds over ahead of his co-main event with Kai Asakura. The fight will go on, but if Archuleta wins, he will not win the title. Asakura is still eligible to win the belt.

After the weigh-ins, Archuleta revealed he was ill and unable to cut weight as he normally does.

"Sorry this happened nothing I can do about getting sick. I did my best to make weight and still step on the scale knowing, I was going to have my title taken away. But I don’t want my fans who pay hard working money to miss this fight. So I did my best and came up short," he tweeted.

He also replied to a fan who said he didn't "deserve" to fight on the event.

"lol you must have never been sick before not something I can say like hey I don’t want to be sick I have weight cut don’t happen like that unfortunately."

Archuleta is in a unique position as he's technically a Bellator fighter who won a RIZIN title during a Bellator/RIZIN cross over event. But now that PFL has purchased Bellator it's unclear how the relationship with the Asian promotion will proceed.

Archuleta is best known for being the only man to beat Patchy Mix. He fought the now champion in 2020 and won the vacant title. Many had thought that Archuleta would call out Mix and even put both titles on the line in the future. That doesn't seem to be possible now.

RIZIN 45 takes place on New Year’s Eve in Saitama, Japan.

RIZIN FF 45 fight card

Main card

• Kyoji Horiguchi (31-5) vs. Makoto Takahashi (16-1-1)
• Juan Archuleta (29-4) vs. Kai Asakura (20-4)
• Kleber Koike (31-7-1) vs. Yutaka Saito (21-7-2)
• Ren Hiramoto (2-3) vs. Ya-Man (0-0)
• Seika Izawa (11-0) vs. Miyuu Yamamoto (6-7)
• Tsuyoshi Sudario (8-2) vs. Mikio Ueda (2-1)
• Hiromasa Ougikubo (25-8-2) vs. John Dodson (24-13)
• Yuki Motoya (34-11) vs. Vince Morales (13-7)
• Shinobu Ota (4-3) vs. Ryusei Ashizawa (0-0)
• Kota Miura (2-0) vs. Kouzi (0-0)
• Igor Tanabe (4-0) vs. Shinsho Anzai (9-5)
• Jo Arai (16-9-2) vs. Hiroya (8-12-1)
• Yuta Kubo (2-1) vs. Rukiya Anpo (0-0)

Prelims

• Satoshi Yamasu (13-7) vs. Suguru Nii (16-12)
• Tatsuki Shinotsuka (11-3) vs. Daichi Tomizawa (2-0)
• Ryujin Nasukawa (0-0) vs. Jongmin Shin (0-0)
• Yushi (3-1) vs. Joe Hiramoto (0-0)