It didn’t take very long for the Ultimate Fighting Championship to find a replacement for an injured Dennis Hallman who was scheduled to meet T.J. Waldburger (13-5) at the upcoming UFC Fight Night 24 (aka UFC Fight Night: Nogueira vs. Davis) event.
Stepping in as Hallman’s replacement will be Johny Hendricks (9-1), who had been set to meet Paulo Thiago last Thursday at the UFC Live: Sanchez vs. Kampmann event, but an elbow injury to Thiago forced the Brazilian off the card.
The announcement was made official after an announcement by the promotion at UFC.com.
UFC President Dana White had this to say about Hendricks.
“Dennis Hallman is out of UFC Fight Night March 26 with a knee injury. Powerful wrestler Johny Hendricks has verbally agreed to replace him against submission specialist TJ Waldburger in a preliminary fight.”
Hendricks enters the fight on a loss, the first of his career, after dropping a unanimoous decision to Rick Story at the The Ultimate Fighter 12 Finale last December. So far he’s 4-1 in the UFC since moving over from the WEC in 2009. Hendricks has earned wins over Charlie Brenneman via TKO at UFC 117, a majority decision over TJ Grant at UFC 113, defeated Ricardo Funch at UFC 107, and stopped Amir Sadollah at UFC 101.
Waldburger has won four straight, making his UFC debut in his last fight against David Mitchell. Waldburger would earn a unanimous decision victory against Mitchell at the UFC Fight Night 22 event. His previous two wins were under the Shark Fights promotion in 2009, earning victories over Pat Healy and Shannon Ritch.
UFC Fight Night 24 will take place on March 26 at the Key Arena in Seattle, Washington. The event is headlined by a light heavyweight bout featuring Antônio Rogério Nogueira and Phil “Mr. Wonderful” Davis.