Having missed weight in back-to-back fights, Leandro Higo is determined to correct those wrongs.
Higo (21-5 MMA, 4-3 BMMA) missed the bantamweight mark by a pound-and-a-half prior to his split decision win over Darrion Caldwell last Friday at Bellator 259, but he insists that things were initially going well.
Higo plans on staying in the U.S. and working on getting his body right.
“I’m heading to Arizona (to Fight Ready MMA),” Higo told MMA Junkie. “I’ll spend an extra three weeks in the U.S. to have access to better technology. This is twice in a row that I couldn’t make weight. This time around, everything was going perfectly. It was the best weight cut of my life. But when I got down to the last couple of pounds, things went really bad. My body refused to sweat anymore. It was rough.”
Higo now has won three consecutive fights and thinks he’s edging closer to a title shot, despite the weight mishaps. As he explained, this isn’t a case of him being undisciplined.
“A lot of people think this is some sort of lack of commitment on my part,” Higo said. “How can I lack commitment? I lost a ton of money. I have two children to feed. I’m going to run out of money sooner than expected. I’m very disappointed about what happened. I’ll do what I can to fix it. I’m closing in on my goal (the belt). And I just beat someone tougher than the current champion (Sergio Pettis).”
If Higo gets a title shot, it’ll be the second of his career as he lost by submission in 2018 to then-champ Caldwell.
‘Disappointed’ Leandro Higo vows to fix weight cut problems as he eyes Bellator title shot
