MMA icon slapped with substantial fine after missing weight before UFC 328
Fan favourite Jeremy Stephens has missed weight ahead of his lightweight clash with King Green at UFC 328 on Saturday night.
‘Lil Heathen’ tipped the scales 4lbs over the 156lbs non-title limit (160lbs) after stripping naked and weighing in behind a curtain.
Green, meanwhile, came in at championship weight (155lbs).
The fight is still set to go ahead, although Stephens will automatically forfeit 30 per cent of his fight purse.
Stephens and Green are set to kick off the UFC 328 main card at the Prudential Centre in Newark, New Jersey, in a shootout between two 39-year-old veterans with a combined 104 professional MMA bouts between them.
The last time Stephens missed weight was exactly six years ago today for his featherweight bout with Calvin Kattar at UFC 249.
All of the other fighters on the bill, including main eventers Khamzat Chimaev and Sean Strickland, have made weight.
Stephens (29-22-1NC) enters fight night on poor form, having only won one of his last 10 outings (including a no-contest with Yair Rodriguez in September 2019).
Green (34-17-1NC) is riding a two-fight winning streak over Lance Gibson Jr and Daniel Zellhuber after being dumped out of the top 15 lightweight rankings by Paddy Pimblett in July 2024.
The fight is expected to produce fireworks, with both men noted for their all-action styles.
Between the pair they have a combined 17 performance bonuses.
The current post-fight bonuses stand at $100,000 under the UFC’s new $7.7bn deal with Paramount+ – a figure Stephens has been very vocal about throught the build-up to this weekend’s event.
UFC 328 weigh-in results
- MAIN CARD
- Khamzat Chimaev (185) vs Sean Strickland (185) – UFC Middleweight title
- Joshua Van (125) vs Tatsuro Taira (125) – UFC Flyweight title
- Alexander Volkov (257) vs Waldo Cortes Acosta (264) – Heavyweight
- Sean Brady (170) vs Joaquin Buckley (170) – Welterweight
- King Green (155) vs Jeremy Stephens (160) – Lightweight
- PRELIMS
- Ateba Gautier (185) vs Ozzy Diaz (186) – Middleweight
- Joel Alvarez (170) vs Yaroslav Amosov (170) – Welterweight
- Grant Dawson (156) vs Mateusz Rebecki (156) – Lightweight
- Jim Miller (155) vs Jared Gordon (156) – Lightweight
- EARLY PRELIMS
- Roman Kopylov (185) vs Marco Tulio (186) – Middleweight
- Pat Sabatini (145) vs William Gomis (145) – Featherweight
- Baisangur Susurkaev (186) vs Djorden Santos (186) – Middleweight
- Clayton Carpenter (126) vs Jose Ochoa (125) – Flyweight
Jeremy Stephens slams UFC bonuses
“Now it is just corporations,” Stephens told Full Send MMA.
“They are like, here you go, $50gs here, $50gs here, and now it is $100gs, but they were already doing that in 2007 at UFC 71 when I started my UFC career.
“I was already making $75,000 bonuses. So what the f*** happened to the money?
“Where is the budget guy on this, because the UFC is making all this money? Why aren’t we getting $500,000 bonuses?
“Bro, you are basically giving out what you gave out thirty years ago.
“It’s kind of f**** up. For me, that doesn’t make sense; it is just really corporate.
“Back in the day, it was the ‘Dana duffle bag,’ bring back the good old days.”
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