Matheus Nicolau slams Manel Kape for weight miss, fight cancelation

Matheus Nicolau won't be fighting in his first UFC co-main event and he blames his would-have-been opponent Manel Kape.

Kape missed weight for their fight on Friday, stepping in 3.5 pounds heavy. Kape claims he was sick leading up to the fight and medications caused the issues with the weight cut. He also said Nicolau refused the fight.

"Guys, I couldn’t make the weight this time, two weeks ago I was extremely sick due to a virus that happened here in Las Vegas, And I had to stay out of training for 5 days and filling myself with antibiotics, not only affected me but many of my training partners," he said on social media after the news broke.

Now Nicolau is giving his thoughts.

"Kape was irresponsible, reckless and disrespectful," Nicolau wrote in Portuguese. "He disrespected me, as a sports colleague, opponent and martial artist. He disrespected MMA. Disrespected the UFC. Disrespected companies that support the sport. But most of all, he disrespected you, UFC fan and MMA fan."

This is not the first time Kape has missed weight and it seems Nicolau may have wanted to teach him a lesson.

"He showed up weighing 3.5 pounds more, knowing that if he weighed 0.5 pounds more, the fight would be automatically suspended by the athletic commission. In other words, in my opinion, he tried to gain an undue advantage by cheating the system," he tweeted.

It's not often that fighters turn down fights after their opponent missed weight. In 2023 Stephen Thompson refused to fight after his opponent missed weight.