It looks like Al Iaquinta won’t be fighting Justin Gaethje after all.
Unfortunately for UFC fans, they will not be getting a matchup they were looking forward to after all. The headliner for the UFC Lincoln event on August 25th was supposed to be a lightweight slugfest between Justin Gaethje and Al Iaquinta. However, Iaquinta has decided to pull out of a fight he originally asked for, according to a report from ESPN.
Iaquinta would not disclose his reasons for canceling the bout.
The 31-year-old New York native has famously battled with the UFC for years, but seemed to be in a more positive place after stepping up to fight Khabib Nurmagomedov on basically no notice at UFC 223. He lost the bout but made a good accounting of himself, and leveraged that into the main event bout with Gaethje.
Since then though he has started to be more combative with the organization again, saying that UFC president Dana White “has no power over him” in regards to the recent weigh-in changes. It should be noted that Iaquinta is also a board member on Project Spearhead, and organization looking to unionize MMA fighters.
According to ESPN’s Ariel Helwani, the UFC is looking for replacements to fight Gaethje and already asked Kevin Lee, but he turned it down:
UFC offered the Justin Gaethje fight to Kevin Lee, sources say, however, I’m told Lee declined the opportunity because he wanted more time to train for his next fight. Lee is hoping to return to action later this year.
— Ariel Helwani (@arielhelwani) June 28, 2018