A planned bout between Kaitlin Young and Milana Dudieva at ProFC 37 in Ufa, Russia has been scrapped due to visa issues. The fight had been set to take place on November 9th, but Young announced her withdrawal tonight after the promotion reportedly failed to provide necessary travel information.
According to Young, ProFC did not provide her with a flight itinerary for her trip until Friday, which made securing a visa in time to compete in Russia all but impossible. She opted not to try to expedite the process by flying to and from the Russian Consultate in Seattle at extra cost and will not compete.
Young (6-5-0) and Dudieva (7-1-0) had been scheduled to face off at 136 pounds on the card. Young most recently scored a first-round TKO victory at Freestyle Cage Fighting 49 earlier this month, while Dudieva has won seven straight fights – all for ProFC – since dropping her pro debut. The fight was expected to be a featured part of the November 9th event.
According to Young’s statement, her contract with ProFC required her to have all medicals done within ten days of her fight. While she had arranged to have the medicals completed on short notice early next week, she would be forced to cancel plans in order to fly to Seattle, Washington first thing on Monday morning in hopes of securing an expedited visa at an additional cost. She would return to Minneapolis, Minnesota on Tuesday and depart for New York City and then Moscow, Russia on Wednesday. There would be no guarantee that her visa could be obtained in time.
Young outlined her decision to withdraw from the fight in her statement.
“The traveling alone would take me out of training for a minimum of 4 days (probably more) at a week out,” she said. “For those of you unfamiliar with the process of cutting weight, this is a huge problem. There was no information on how or when we would arrive in Ufa (quite a distance from Moscow). If the flight information was any indication of [ProFC’s] organizational skills, we were in for a rough trip.
“There would be no possible way for me to complete the medical requirements in my contract. Maybe [ProFC] would not ask for them, but if they did…there would be none,” Young added. “The pay was on the lower end to begin with. [ProFC] offered no additional compensation for extra travel and time spent that was a direct result of their mistake. The whole ordeal would take both Ryan [Murray] and I out of work for 2 full weeks. Pro fighters should not lose money on a fight.”
With Young now off of the card, it is currently unknown whether Dudieva will still compete.
[…] surrounding Young’s travel and visa situation for the planned November 9th bout, which Young discussed in a statement on Sunday, she remains optimistic that the fight with Dudieva will proceed as […]
[…] was most recently supposed to face Milana Dudieva in Russia, but withdrew from the fight due to disorganization on part of the promotion. A rescheduling attempt also fell […]