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Chase Beebe no-shows weigh-in for UWC fight
By Zach Arnold | February 20, 2009
From press release
Chase Beebe Fails to Show for Official Weigh-in; Scratched from MAN “O” WAR Card
Mike “The Hulk” Easton to face H.I.T. Squad’s Justin Robbins for UWC Bantamweight Championship Title
Fairfax, VA — Chase Beebe failed to show for today’s weigh-in and is officially out of Saturday’s UWC – MAN “O” WAR Bantamweight Championship title bout against Mike “The Hulk” Easton at Patriot Center. Beebe has been replaced by H.I.T. (Hughes Intensive Training) Squad’s Justin Robbins for the Main Event’s title fight.
Beebe allegedly sustained a knee injury that hampered his training and ability to reduce his weight to the contractually-set limit of 135 pounds. However, the former WEC champion failed to provide medical records regarding his injury and did not appear at today’s official weigh-in, resulting in the UWC finding a last-minute replacement.
“We are extremely disappointed that Chase failed to show up today to compete at MAN “O” WAR and equally frustrated by the way this entire situation has played out,” said Ultimate Warrior Sports Development CEO Marcello Foran. “We were aware that he was having troubling cutting weight earlier this week, but never received any official medical documentation about the severity or extent of an injury that would force him to pull out of the show which is required in his contract.”
Beebe missed his Thursday morning flight from Illinois to Washington, DC and failed to post at today’s official weigh-in. He has not communicated directly with any UWC official to alert them of his decision. UWC plans to hold Beebe legally accountable and Virginia’s sanctioning body, the Department of Professional and Occupational Regulation, plans to impose sanctions against the fighter.
“While this situation is certainly disappointing to everyone, I promise that MAN “O” WAR will live up to everyone’s high expectation as the biggest and best MMA show to hit the National Capital region,” continued Foran about the UWC’s third Washington DC area event. “Every single fighter participating tomorrow will give 100-percent and my hat certainly goes off to Justin and Mike for their professionalism for agreeing to the championship fight at last minute.”
Beebe’s camp through trainer Marc Fiore informed UWC officials this past Tuesday night that the 24-year old fighter was having trouble making weight due to an apparent knee injury suffered in training camp. Beebe’s camp asked Easton’s team if they would be willing to allow Beebe to fight at a higher weight of 145 pounds, mentioning the possibility that Beebe might not be able to compete at 135 pounds on Saturday. A one pound concession to 136 pounds was granted to Beebe by UWC officials. Beebe’s contract with the UWC requires the fighter to be medically evaluated by a UWC-approved physician in the event of injury that would prevent him from participating. At mid-week, UWC officials began working on a contingency replacement as a result of their conversations with Beebe’s camp.
Topics: All Topics, MMA, Media, Zach Arnold | 6 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback | Share This
Chase Beebe is scheduled to compete in the DREAM Featherweight (139 lbs) Tournament. I have a feeling his knee will be perfectly healthy for the first round.
If that is indeed the case, it is rather pathetic and unprofessional to do what Beebe is doing.
Rather? More like “grossly” pathetic and unprofessional.
Wait! Did Chase Beebe get released from his Zuffa contract?
I don’t think Chase Bebee gives a crap about having no-showed the event, clearly, and I find the vitrol the 7 to 8 people that pretend to care have about it sort of comical. People no showing on smaller shows happens all the time, and when it does, places like this website often put up stories about how lousy, nieve, or stupid the promoter is. In this case, for some time, Chase Bebee has been double booked: Once with the UWC, once with DREAM. Did anyone actually think he was going to show up in DC? Really?
While I know it happens all the time, I really don’t think dismissing unprofessional and frankly damaging practices by people in the industry is a healthy attitude to take at all.
They had a back-up plan ready with another fighter in place and are going to do what they can to hold him responsible, so that shows rather good ability on the part of the promotion, hopefully they can continue to make the most of it.
[...] only other MMA win was against Virginia MMA no-shower Chase Beebe at DREAM 7. If Warren keeps the fight competitive or wins outright, Yamamoto’s [...]