Friday was a good day for the UFC, they didn’t have to announce a single injury or replacement fight.
If you thought the injury-free day was the start of a new trend, you’d be wrong. Saturday evening, news broke that Jose Aldo was added to the ever-growing list of fighters that have recently been pulled from a UFC main card.
The news was announced by the UFC’s Canadian wing, which tweeted:
Injury bug bites again – Aldo out for Calgary event. #UFC149 gets new main event as Faber faces Barao for interim bantamweight championship.
This is the second injury for Aldo since he joined the UFC. The former WEC featherweight champion was set to make his debut at UFC 125, but a neck injury delayed that debut until UFC 129, where Aldo defeated Mark Hominick by unanimous decision.
Aldo has added two additional title defenses to his resume since that victory, with victories over Kenny Florian and Chad Mendes.
With Aldo off the card, it will be interesting to see if the UFC switches opponents for Aldo when he is healthy and ready to fight. The man he was scheduled to fight at UFC 149, Erik Koch, is not a widely recognized name and sits behind fighters such as Chan Sung Jung and Hatsu Hioki in the divisional rankings.
Hioki is set to face Ricardo Lamas at UFC on FX 4, while Jung is coming off a dominant win over Dustin Poirier at UFC on Fuel TV 3. A Hioki win would put him in the mix for a title shot and Jung, after his win over Poirier, already has to be in serious consideration for a title fight.
The new main event at UFC 149 will feature Urijah Faber versus Renan Barao, a fight that was moved from the UFC 148 card. That fight will be for the interim bantamweight crown, a fight made out of necessity when Faber’s original opponent, bantamweight champion Dominick Cruz, was pulled from the card after suffering an ACL tear during training.
There has been no word as to the exact nature of Aldo’s injury.
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