A UFC bout in Las Vegas has been cancelled after one of the fighters was in clear distress thanks to a brutal weight cut.
Aspen Ladd's bantamweight bout with Macy Chiasson was cancelled after Ladd failed to make weight and almost collapsed on stage.
The 26-year-old initially tipped the scales at 141.5 pounds (64.2 kilograms), well over the maximum allowable limit for bantamweights — 61.2 kgs.
Her team called for a privacy shield to allow her to strip off and try to drop the final few pounds and get under the limit, but as the scales were being adjusted, Ladd started to shake.
She rose her hands above her head and appeared to start to collapse before finding her feet.
Extreme weight cuts are a common and potentially dangerous part of boxing, mixed martial arts and other combat sports.
Fighters dehydrate themselves intensely leading into weigh-ins, then gain as much weight as possible before the opening bell the next day.
Ladd said she took "complete and full responsibility for not making weight".
"Did the best I could, hit 137, the scale situation was a mess because the last thing I wanted was to bleed in front of the media.
"The fight wasn't pulled, my opponent then decided she would rather not go through with it, as is her right. I'm going to get slammed regardless, so let it begin."
Leading combat sports journalist Ariel Helwani described the video as "extremely troubling".
"She looked like a corpse up there," he wrote on Twitter before the fight was called off.
"Just can't be healthy to let someone in that shape compete in a fight less than 36 hours later."
Ladd missed weight for her Invicta FC fight with Jessica Hoy back in 2016 and was fined 25 per cent of her purse, although she won the bout after it went ahead at a catchweight.
She also missed weight in what would have been her second fight in the UFC, which was cancelled, and was also visibly distressed at the weigh-in before a fight against Germaine de Randamie in July 2019, which she ended up losing.
