Montana De La Rosa was supposed to fight Luana Carolina on March 1, but the latter couldn’t compete due to weight-cutting complications. The fight was called off.
Rather surprisingly, De La Rosa was removed from the UFC’s roster on March 20 and not Carolina who has now missed weight twice in her last three scheduled fights. We’ll see what happens with Carolina as her consistent problems making weight probably aren’t sitting well with UFC President Dana White and Co.
De La Rosa snapped a three-fight losing streak in what seemed like a make-or-break fight in a rematch against Andrea Lee in June 2024. The 30-year-old eked out a split decision win in a battle of women who came in on nasty losing streaks.
Lee had lost four in a row coming into the fight. She’s now lost a record six fights in a row, and the UFC has parted ways with her as well. While De La Rosa’s 13-9-1 record was far from impressive and her 6-5-1 mark in the UFC is average at best, it’s still strange to see a fighter cut after a win—especially when their next fight is canceled due to their opponent’s weight miss.
De La Rosa is a veteran of The Ultimate Fighter Season 26 in 2017. She competed on the show, which was set up to crown the inaugural women’s flyweight champion. De La Rosa won her first fight against Ariel Beck via D’arce choke in the first round.
However, De La Rosa lost to the eventual winner of the season and the first-ever women’s flyweight champion, Nicco Montano. Though De La Rosa was eliminated from the season, she did fight on the TUF 26 Season Finale. She scored another first-round submission win over Christina Marks via armbar.
De La Rosa didn’t compete again until the TUF 27 Finale when she defeated Rachael Ostovich via third-round submission in July 2018. De La Rosa would win by submission again in February 2019 when she tapped out Nadia Kassem via armbar in the second round at UFC 234.
Lee handed De La Rosa her first loss in the UFC when she won a unanimous decision in June 2019. Things went up and down for De La Rosa from there, with her falling short against Viviane Araujo, Maycee Barber, Tatiana Suarez, and JJ Aldrich before avenging the 2019 loss to Lee and snapping a three-fight skid.
Nonetheless, the UFC elected to go in a different direction, making De La Rosa a free agent. It will be interesting to see if the Professional Fighters League is interested in De La Rosa. She has big-time experience and could be an opponent for one of the promotion’s biggest stars, Dakota Ditcheva.
Up Next – UFC London
Somewhere between a PPV and an Apex event, that’s where the UFC London card sits—and I’m here for it. Leon Edwards climbs back into the Octagon for the first time since losing his title to Belal Muhammad.
Edwards takes on Sean Brady, with the winner seemingly set up to fight for the title in the near future. Here is a look at the entire card.
Main Card (Starting at 3:00 PM ET):
- Welterweight Bout: Leon Edwards vs. Sean Brady
- Light Heavyweight Bout: Jan Błachowicz vs. Carlos Ulberg
- Welterweight Bout: Gunnar Nelson vs. Kevin Holland
- Women’s Strawweight Bout: Molly McCann vs. Alexia Thainara
- Lightweight Bout: Jordan Vucenic vs. Chris Duncan
- Featherweight Bout: Nathaniel Wood vs. Morgan Charrière
Preliminary Card (Starting at 12:00 PM ET):
- Lightweight Bout: Jai Herbert vs. Chris Padilla
- Flyweight Bout: Lone’er Kavanagh vs. Felipe dos Santos
- Heavyweight Bout: Marcin Tybura vs. Mick Parkin
- Middleweight Bout: Christian Leroy Duncan vs. Andre Pulyaev
- Women’s Strawweight Bout: Shauna Bannon vs. Puja Tomar
- Bantamweight Bout: Nathan Fletcher vs. Caolan Loughran
- Lightweight Bout: Guram Kutateladze vs. Kaue Fernandes