UFC strawweight champion Weili Zhang’s latest battle isn’t taking place inside the cage.

Zhang (20-1 MMA, 4-0 UFC) became the first fighter from her native country of The People’s Republic of China to sport UFC gold when she ran through then-champion Jessica Andrade via first-round TKO in late August.

Before her first title defense has even been scheduled, Zhang has found herself in the midst of another kind of fight. The 30-year-old has been unable to get a visa to the United States, she announced on her Instagram page Monday morning.

The post from Zhang can be seen below:

Zhang’s post did not go unnoticed by the powers that be. United States Representative for Hawaii’s 2nd district and Democratic presidential candidate Tulsi Gabbard has reached out in an effort to get the UFC champion clearance to travel to the U.S., according to a comment by Zhang on her original post.

“Wow!” Zhang wrote. “I just received news from my manager that miss @tulsigabbard contacted him to try and help us. Thank you thank you miss Tulsi”

In a quote posted on by Zhang’s manager Brian Butler on his Instagram story, Gabbard told them the following, “We need more ties and partnerships between our two countries in spite of the differences. MMA is an amazing way to do that.”

In a statement given to MMA Junkie, Butler clarified the recent sequence of events:

“At this time we have been denied a visa to come here for the media tour next week. We believe that there was some miscommunication of some sort that caused red flags to raise to cause the denial. We are not quite sure what that is but we are working through the process as we speak. The UFC legal department is working on it and presidential candidate/congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard also responded to me and is trying to help on her end.”

Gallery Weili Zhang def. Jessica Andrade at UFC on ESPN+ 15: Best photos view 31 images

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