The champ’s homecoming is official.
Flyweight title holder Ilima-Lei Macfarlane and challenger Valerie Letourneau made the 125-pound weight limit Friday for tonight’s Bellator 213 main event.
A near sold-out Blaisdell Arena crowd will welcome Macfarlane, a Punahou alumna, back home for the second defense of the title she won in December 2017.
Macfarlane (8-0) weighed in at exactly 125 pounds, while Letourneau (10-6) officially checked in at 124.4 pounds.
“It’s been a really, really stress-free fight week,” Macfarlane said Thursday. “I’m sure the nerves are going to sink in more and more the day of (the fight) and everything, but right now, I’m super chill. I’m back home in Hawaii.”
Macfarlane has already invited Letourneau, who is from Canada, to a luau on Sunday regardless of the outcome of the fight. When the two fighters met to square off at Friday’s weigh-in, Macfarlane gave a lei to Letourneau.
“I like it. (We) will have a drink after this fight no matter what happens,” Letourneau said Thursday. “I think we always respect each other and we have nothing against each other. It’s a sport and we’re going to fight.”
Things weren’t quite as respectful between Makaha’s Nainoa Dung and Haleiwa’s Kona Oliveira, who are the only two local fighters going head-to-head on the main card of either Bellator show this weekend.
Both camps chirped back and forth inside the Tapa Ballroom at the Hilton Hawaiian Village after Thursday’s press conference as the main-card fighters posed for the media. They even drew a response from King Mo Lawal, who faces Liam McGeary and was posing for photos, to calm everyone down.
Friday’s weigh-in went off without incident, with both men staring each other down for the entire face-off.
Rafael Carvalho, who will fight former UFC light heavyweight champion Lyoto Machida in tonight’s co-main event, missed weight by a half-pound and forfeited 20 percent of his fight purse to Machida, who is making his Bellator debut.
Former Icon Sport middleweight champion Kala Kolohe Hose, competing for the first time in six years, weighed in at 208.3 pounds, missing weight for his light heavyweight fight against Marcus Gamble.