UFC president Dana White spoke at the UFC Vegas 15: post-fight press conference sharing that he doesn’t believe top Featherweight contender Yair Rodriguez will be fighting anytime soon.
Rodriguez who was initially booked to face Zabit Magomedsharipov in August was forced to pull out of the bout due to injury. Since then, nothing has been announced regarding rescheduling the bout or who Rodriguez could potentially face next.
At the press conference when asked why nothing had been announced White shared few details.
“Have we not publicly talked about that?” White asked a member of his staff. “I don’t think he’s gonna fight soon.”
A member of the media asked White if it was due to injury to which he simply answered no. “We didn’t announce it, I don’t know why we didn’t but yeah, I don’t know what the deal is It’s actually none of my business what’s going on there but when it comes out it will come out,” White explained.
While he chose not to share any details when asked if this was due to Rodriguez declining a fight White quickly shared that this was not the case.
Rodriguez is coming off a victory against Jeremy Stephens in October of 2019. This fight was a rematch of a bout that had occurred the month prior initially ending in a no-contest due to an eye poke.
In the subsequent rematch, Rodriguez was able to take a unanimous decision victory after widely dominating the first two rounds of the three-round bout. Following this victory rumors began to circulate of the highly anticipated matchup against Magomedsharipov, however, ultimately this bout never came to fruition.
As Dana stated, there is currently no timeline of when we can expect to see Rodriguez return to fight in the octagon.
When do you think we will see Rodriguez back next?