It should come as no surprise that Nicco Montano’s coach isn’t happy with how things went down this past weekend for his fighter.

Dropping weight for her first title defense as the UFC’s inaugural women’s flyweight champion, Montano (4-2 MMA, 1-0 UFC) struggled in her cut and had to be hospitalized. Once that happened, her fight against Valentina Shevchenko (15-3 MMA, 4-2 UFC), who was an historic 14-1 favorite as the challenger, was off as the UFC 228 co-main event in Dallas.

A few hours later, not only was Montano out of her fight, but she was missing her belt, as well. UFC President Dana White announced Montano had been stripped of the title and that Shevchenko eventually will fight someone for the 125-pound belt later this year.

But Tom Vaughn, Montano’s coach at the FIT-NHB gym in Albuquerque, N.M., said it’s not so simple as his fighter just having a bad weight cut.

“It was a nightmare,” Vaughn today told MMAjunkie Radio. “It goes back farther than (this past week). Nicco had a broken foot on the show. After she won (Season 26 of) ‘The Ultimate Fighter’ and won the title, she had to have her foot put in a boot. She was inactive for quite a while. She got a little heavy. When she finally got the boot off and started training again, she was getting sick – severe colds, and found out it was her tonsils infected. So she had to have a tonsilectomy.

“She really had a series of things, and there was a lot of pressure to make this fight happen earlier than she wanted to. That played into part of this. The weight cut, the weight just didn’t come off as planned and here we are. It was a freaking nightmare.”

Vaughn said UFC officials were around when Montano was struggling with her weight cut, and after a call with a doctor, it was determined she needed to go to the hospital ahead of this past Friday’s official weigh-ins.

After that, Vaughn said, “Things just unraveled real quick.

“I’m still in disbelief that she was stripped of the title for something that has happened to a lot of athletes that are still fighting in the same weight class. The other part of that is when they called me to tell me they were stripping her of the title, they were saying that Andy Foster from (the California State Athletic Commission) was going to make it difficult for Nicco to ever fight at 125 again, which is crazy. She’s made that weight every time.”

Foster is the CSAC’s executive director and had no jurisdiction over Montano’s fight in Texas. But in his role, he can make recommendations to other commissions and also take Montano’s weight-cutting issue at UFC 228 into consideration if she ever were to be booked to fight in California.

Gallery Photos: Best of Valentina Shevchenko view 27 images

Vaughn said Montano already is booked to head to the UFC’s Performance Institute in Las Vegas in October. There, she can have a litany of experts help look in on her training and provide guidance that might help her when the time comes for her next fight and drop to 125 pounds.

Shevchenko doesn’t have an opponent yet for what White said will be a vacant women’s flyweight title fight. But once that happens, Vaughn said he hopes his fighter will be there waiting for the winner to try to get her belt back.

He even offered up an interesting scenario. Why not let Montano fight Shevchenko’s sister, Antonina Shevchenko? Shevchenko (6-0 MMA, 0-0 UFC) will make her first official UFC appearance in November when she meets Ashlee Evans-Smith (6-3 MMA, 3-3 UFC) at the TUF 28 Finale. But in case Evans-Smith can’t make that fight …

“October, she’s already going out (to the Performance Institute). Then we’re going back for the belt,” Vaughn said. “To tell you the truth, we wouldn’t mind Nicco fighting Valentina’s sister – beat her up, then go back for Valentina. We’re going to try to have Nicco ready in case her sister’s opponent drops out. We’re going to be ready.”

Check out the full interview with Vaughn in the video above.

And for complete coverage of UFC 228, check out the UFC Events section of the site.

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