And the UFC’s summer of injuries continues.
Brian Stann was scheduled to welcome Hector Lombard into the UFC at UFC on Fox 4 in Anaheim, California on August 4th. The bout would be the main event of the card and promised to be an exciting scrap between two of the division’s heaviest hitters.
According to Ariel Helwani of MMAFighting.com, Stann has reportedly suffered a shoulder injury and will be pulled from the fight. The injury will not require surgery, but it will keep Stann sidelined for roughly six to eight weeks.
Details are sketchy as to how Stann injured his shoulder, but it was bad enough to force him from the fight. Helwani reports that there has been no one tapped to replace Stann as of yet.
Brian Stann was looking to get back into title contention, and a win over the former Bellator middleweight champion would have been a huge step in that direction. The shoulder injury will now halt any momentum that Stann had built and will send him back down the middleweight pecking order.
For Lombard, this may not be the greatest of news either. Many saw Stann as a winnable fight, as he’s mainly known just for having heavy hands. Whoever the UFC finds to replace the “All American” will provide a much different stylistic matchup.
I know I speak for everyone when I say that I’m getting very tired of all of these injuries. At this point, the UFC’s biggest concern is keeping their fighters healthy. Unfortunately, it just seems that when it rains it pours, and the UFC is apparently in the middle of monsoon season.
Read more MMA news on BleacherReport.com