Efrain Escudero has been removed from a scheduled main card bout against Tim Radcliffe at BAMMA 7. The former "The Ultimate Fighter Season 8" winner was forced to drop from the event on Monday after being denied travel to England because of outstanding visa issues. According to Escudero, the issues would not be able to be fixed until the end of the week, thus his management team elected to withdraw his name from the contest.
"Apparently they couldn't fly me in, in time," Escudero said to MMAWeekly.com. "They wanted to fly me up on Thursday and I would get there Friday at 1 o'clock and there's no way,"
"I really don't know the full scale about it. They said it was a visa issue."
Despite having the required paperwork, the fighter's visa problems appeared to be imminent as the days to the event counted down. Escudero sent out this tweet Sunday afternoon, foreshadowing the announcement.
"@ResidencyMMA: @effyescudero When are you flying over here, dude?"that's a good question
BAMMA officials have not yet commented about Tim Radcliffe's status on the card.
The abrupt announcement does not impact Escudero's status for BAMMA 8, which the 25-year-old is scheduled to participate in as part of a three-fight contract he signed earlier in the year.
Regardless, after an exhaustively extended training camp, Escudero is primed and ready to go to war inside the cage, preferably sooner rather than later.
"I'm off the card completely, looking to book another fight somewhere," Escudero said. "Cause I'm ready to fight."