UPDATE: MMAJunkie has now confirmed that the rumors of Nate Marquardt being pulled from the main event fight vs. Rick Story of the UFC on Versus 4 card scheduled for this Sunday, June 26 are true.
The story was confirmed by Marquardt’s camp, who sent out this statement:
“Nate is really disappointed,” the statement read. “He really was looking forward to making his welterweight debut, and he plans to be back in there as soon as possible.”
To further confirm this rumor, B/R MMA Editor Brian Oswald received a text moments ago from Kelly Crigger, Marquardt’s manager at Alchemist, stating simply, “Nate was not medically cleared to fight. More soon.”
Rick Story will now fight Charlie Brenneman while Pat Barry vs. Cheick Kongo will be promoted to the main event.
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Rumors are flooding in from various sources on Twitter that the main event for UFC on Versus 4 featuring Nate Marquardt vs. Rick Story is off.
According to sources which include fellow UFC welterweight Diego Sanchez, Marquardt has been scratched from the event.
“@DiegoSanchez505: ??? @NathanMarquardt what happened bro heard you are out of the fight?”
“@DiegoSanchez505: U hope it is just a [rumor] but my source is pretty reliable”
The prevailing rumor is that Marquardt was simply unable to cut the necessary weight to make it down to 170 pounds for the fight.
He was scheduled to make his debut at welterweight in this fight against Rick Story and had been talking publicly about how easy the weight cut is going, but the final few days can often be the worst.
John Morgan from MMAJunkie had more on the rumor, indicating that there may already be a replacement in the works.
“MMAjunkieJohn: Word spreading that Marquardt is late scratch, leaving Brenneman to face Story while Barry-Kongo takes main event. Working hard to verify.”
Charlie Brenneman was scheduled to fight TJ Grant on the same card, but Grant was forced off the card due to illness just a few days ago. Because the event was so close and it would be difficult to find a suitable replacement in time, the bout was instead simply scrapped.
But if the rumors are true and Story is also without an opponent, a mix-match fight between Story and Brenneman makes sense on short notice.
No word either way, yet, from the UFC; but these rumors seem to have some validity to them given the sources they are coming from.
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