Another week and another main event card change due to injuries. It just seems Dana White and the UFC brass just cannot catch a break (no pun intended). Other than being the most injury ridden year ever, there was numerous other reasons that caused fighters to pull out of fights. Last week, it was UFC 153 card’s turn to be affected as both Jose Aldo and Rampage Jackson were pulled due to foot and elbow injuries respectively. Some will say it is a curse, some say it is the fighter’s insurance program, and some argue it is due to an overloaded event schedule, but that can be a discussion for another day.
Let’s look back at the main events this year that never were.
UFC 142 – January 14
First UFC event of the year and it escaped relatively unscathed from injuries. This event had a total 4 injury replacements but only one fight on the main card was affected. Erick Silva was scheduled to face Siya Bahadurzada but ended up fighting Carlo Prater instead. However, the co-main event of this card almost got cancelled. Anthony Johnson, who is well known for his weight issues, came in 11 pounds over the 186 lb weight limit. Belfort agreed to fight if Anthony weighed no more than 205 lb on the day of the fight. Luckily for the UFC and fans, Anthony made the 205 lb limit and the co-main event was saved.
UFC 143 – February 4
This card was supposed to feature the welterweight super fight between GSP and Nick Diaz; a fight that many fans were wishing for. Unfortunately GSP was injured so Carlos Condit, who originally was slated to face Josh Koscheck on the same card, stepped in to take GSP’s place for the interim title. In turn, Koscheck’s new opponent was Mike Pierce. The dream welterweight fight of GSP vs Diaz is still just that today – A dream.
UFC 144 – February 26
Well, UFC, don’t say you don’t get any luck because the main card for UFC 144 went as planned. However, there were still 2 injuries on preliminary card.
UFC 145 – April 21
Well, up to this point of the year, main cards were doing pretty well in terms of avoiding changes so you can say the UFC was still relatively lucky. At UFC 145, only one main event fight was changed. Mark Bocek was expected to take on Matt Wiman but he withdrew due to injury so fellow Canadian John Alessio stepped in to set up the all Canadian match up.
UFC 146 – May 26
And this is where the UFC’s luck went downhill. This all heavyweight main event was supposed to be headlined by Junior dos Santos against Alistair Overeem, but we all know how that panned out. If you don’t, well, let’s just say Overeem was intaking more than just horse meat. In stepped Frank Mir to take on dos Santos. This whole main card was one big shuffle after that fell through as it created a domino effect of shake ups in the matches on the main card. On April 20, 2012, Dana White announced that dos Santos would now defend his title against Frank Mir instead. Two days later, White announced Cain Velasquez, who was originally slated to fight Mir in the co-main event, would face Antonio Silva instead. In effect, Roy Nelson, who was originally scheduled to fight Silva, would fight Gabriel Gonzaga but that only lasted briefly as he dropped out and Nelson would eventually face Dave Herman. Lastly, Shane del Rosario, who was originally slated to fight Gonzaga, would face Stipe Miocic. Are you confused yet? The only main card fight that stayed untouched was Stefan Struve vs Mark Hunt.
UFC 147 – June 23
This one was a doozy. Originally scheduled to fight was champ Anderson Silva in a rematch against his arch nemesis Chael Sonnen. However, due to a logistics conflict with the United Nations Conference in Rio and many other different reasons, that match was moved to UFC 148. Further to that, Vitor Belfort broke his left hand in training so he had to pull out. The new main event was changed to Rich Franklin facing Brazilian fan favorite Wanderlei Silva. This card was also set to host the middleweight tournament final of The Ultimate Fighter: Brazil between Cezar Ferreira and Daniel Sarafian but he would replaced by semifinalist Sergio Moraes. Due to the changes, ticket-holders were even offered a full ticket refund if they didn’t want to attend the event. This was a first for the organization.
UFC 148 – July 7
Dominick Cruz was set to defend his Bantamweight belt against hated rival Urijah Faber in the co-main event following their stint as opposing coaches on The Ultimate Fighter. However, Cruz suffered a torn ACL and was forced off the card. The trilogy fight of Forrest Griffin and Tito Ortiz would be bumped to co-main event status. In his return fight to middleweight, Rich Franklin was expected to fight against movie star Cung Le. However, due to an injury to UFC 147 headliner Vitor Belfort, Franklin was pulled from this fight to replace Belfort in rematch against Wanderlei Silva. Le would go on to face veteran Patrick Cote and welcome him back to the UFC. The match up of Mike Easton and Ivan Menjivar would move up to the PPV portion to fill up the main card.
UFC 149 – July 21
Calgary fans, you really needed to shoot that injury bug as all fights on the main card were changed. Yes, every single one of them! Originally, Jose Aldo was set to defend his title at this event against Erik Koch. However, with Aldo’s injury, they replace this title fight with the bamtamweight interim title fight between Urijah Faber and Renan Barao. In the co-main event, a bout between Michael Bisping and Tim Boetsch fell through because Bisping got injured and was replaced by promotional newcomer Hector Lombard. Big Nog was set to face Cheick Kongo but his arm wasn’t fully healed yet so Shawn Jordan stepped in. Shogun was expected to fight Thiago Silva but he got injured so they pulled both fighters from the card and replaced it with Claude Patrick against James Heads. However, Patrick got injured and was replaced by Brian Ebersole. Yoshihiro Akiyama was matched up with Thiago Alves but Sexyama was also forced to pull out of the fight due to injury and replaced by Siyar Bahadurzada. To make matters worse, Alves got injured soon after and was replaced by Chris Clements. At this point, it was just comical as Bahadurzada was also got injured and was replaced by Matthew Riddle. In the end, the card went on but it was not close to what it was originally set to be.
UFC 150 – August 11
Since the last event took such a hit, I think the fight gods took it easy on this one from an injury standpoint. Only one main event fight was affected by injury. Yushin Okami was set to face Luiz Cane but injury forced him to be replaced by the leg submission specialist, Rousimar Palhares. However, Palhares himself got injured too so they got Buddy Roberts to step in and face the Thunder.
UFC 151 – September 1
This one tops all others. Jon Jones was expected to take on Dan Henderson in the main event but Henderson was injured while training and unfortunately couldn’t compete. Chael Sonnen agreed to step up to the plate on 8 days notice but Jones told UFC President Dana White that he did not want to take that fight. Subsequently, without a main event caliber fight, White and the UFC brass were forced to cancel the entire card! The first time something like this has happened since Zuffa took over the UFC.
UFC 152 – September 22
Their loss is our gain. That was how things ended up for UFC 152. With the cancellation of UFC 151, Jon Jones was expected to take on Lyoto Machida at UFC 152 in the main event; however, Machida declined the proposed fight and now taking on Jones is former champ, Vitor Belfort. Subsequently, the inaugural flyweight title fight between Joseph Benavidez and Demetrious Johnson was pushed to the co-main event. Also, Rory MacDonald was expected to face The Prodigy BJ Penn, but MacDonald suffered a serious cut while training. Things got weird as Roger Hollett was forced to pull out of his bout with Matt Hamill due to contractual issues with Bellator and in stepped Vladimir Matyushenko. Matyushenko was then forced to withdraw due to injury so Hollett returns to his original spot to face Hamill after the contract issues were resolved. With less than a week to go, let’s hope there are no more surprises to this event.
