While it was previously announced that Kelvin Gastelum (16-8 MMA, 11-8-1 UFC) had been removed from next week’s UFC 273, the promotion found a way to keep him on the card.
Promotion officials today announced that South Africa’s Dricus Du Plessis (16-2 MMA, 2-0 UFC) has agreed to step up to the the contest.
Du Plessis had been expected to face Anthony Hernandez (8-2 MMA, 2-2 UFC), who will now instead face UFC newcomer Josh Fremd (9-2 MMA, 0-0 UFC).
Here’s the official announcement from the promotion:
Dricus Du Plessis has been removed from his middleweight bout with Anthony Hernandez and will now fill in against Kelvin Gastelum.
Replacing Du Plessis against Hernandez will be UFC newcomer Josh Fremd, who earned his UFC contract on the most recent episode of “Dana White: Lookin’ for a Fight.”
With the changes to the card, the lineup for UFC 273, which takes place April 9 at VyStar Veterans Memorial Arena in Jacksonville, Fla., now includes:
MAIN CARD (Pay-per-view, 10 p.m. ET)
- Champ Alexander Volkanovski vs. Chan Sung Jung – for featherweight title
- Champ Aljamain Sterling vs. Interim champ Petr Yan – to unify bantamweight title
- Gilbert Burns vs. Khamzat Chimaev
- Mackenzie Dern vs. Tecia Torres
- Ilir Latifi vs. Aleksei Oleinik
- Kelvin Gastelum vs. Dricus Du Plessis
PRELIMINARY CARD (ESPN, 8 p.m. ET)
- Aspen Ladd vs. Raquel Pennington
- Ian Garry vs. Darian Weeks
- Josh Fremd vs. Anthony Hernandez
- Jairzinho Rozenstruik vs. Marcin Tybura
PRELIMINARY CARD (ESPN+, 6 p.m. ET)
- Mickey Gall vs. Mike Malott
- Julio Arce vs. Daniel Santos
- Mark Madsen vs. Vinc Pichel
- Kay Hansen vs. Piera Rodriguez
