Within the last month the UFC has lost three main events and four of the fighters in those events due to injury or illness.
Furthermore, if one looks back to this past February the main event between Rashad Evans and Mauricio Rua was lost when Evans injured his knee.
Fortunately for the UFC, Jon Jones was able to step in on short notice and a new star was born when Jones took the light heavyweight title from Rua in dominating fashion.
Unfortunately situations like the one with Jones stepping in on short notice to face Rua aren’t the status quo when fighters have to pull out of a fight.
Often times the injured fighter is replaced by a fighter who maybe wasn’t the best fit, but was in the right place at the right time or the fight is cancelled all together.
The heavily anticipated rematch between Frankie Edgar and Gray Maynard was put on hold when both fighters had to pull out citing injury and the UFC 130 main event will now be Quinton Jackson vs Matt Hamill.
An interesting fight no doubt, but there is no title on the line and Jackson vs Hamill is certainly not on the level of Edgar vs Maynard three.
The aforementioned Jones has been replaced by Phil Davis to fight Rashad Evans in the main event for UFC 133 and once again, fans will be deprived of a title fight, although there is still time to find a title fight between now and August 6.
The interesting story behind the Jones situation is that Evans and Jones used to be teammates who vowed never to fight one another until Jones changed his mind and then the bad blood started to boil over.
Now Davis vs. Evans is a great fight, but that hype train simply doesn’t have the steam of Jones vs. Evans.
Finally just last week it was announced in an emergency media conference call by UFC president Dana White and former UFC heavyweight champion and Ultimate Fighter 13 coach Brock Lesnar that Lesnar would have to pull out of his fight with Junior Dos Santos due to the recurrence of his diverticulitis.
Of course the UFC was quick to find a replacement for Dos Santos as former contender Shane Carwin was already training to welcome UFC newcomer John-Olav Einemo to the Octagon at UFC 131 in Vancouver.
Carwin is definitely worthy of the fight and with the knock out power between himself and Dos Santos, it should be an exciting fight to boot—perhaps more exiting than Lesnar vs. Dos Santos.
The only problem is that Carwin doesn’t have the drawing power of Lesnar and it simply renders the finale to season 13 of The Ultimate Fighter anti-climatic to say the least.
Obviously any time a fighter has to pull out of a fight it is a raw deal for everyone—the fans because they don’t get to see the fights they want, the promoter because they have to scramble to find a new fight and risk losing PPV buys, and finally, but most importantly the fighters.
Not only do the injured fighters lose out on a chance to make money come fight night, but many times they have to foot the medical bills to get back on their feet.
Luckily for the fighters, the UFC has just recently set up an insurance policy to take effect in June that will insure fighters for up to $50,000 for injuries outside of the Octagon.
All this to say, is it a surprise that the UFC has been losing a few main and co-main events here and there? Absolutely not, the UFC is putting on more shows than ever since the passing of UFC 100 and the more events being put on, the more chances that injuries and illness put them in Jeopardy.
This isn’t the first bad streak the UFC has had to go through in terms of losing fights due to fighters being forced to pull out.
Similar to how a lot of main events are falling by the way side after the UFC’s biggest event ever, UFC 129: St-Pierre vs. Shields, the same thing happened after what was probably the company’s second biggest event in history—UFC 100.
In the nine events following UFC 100, only one had a title fight headlining the card and four of the five UFC champions at the time were out nursing injuries.
Things eventually got back on track and in the spring and summer of 2010 the UFC was able to put on a string of stacked cards that had fans everywhere watering at the mouth.
The thing is when a lot of guys get injured and have to come back, it creates a log jam and often times what ends up happening is a slew of great fights once those guys start getting back into the fold.
In any case, mixed martial arts is a combat sport and it is often said that training is just as hard if not harder than the actual fight. So it doesn’t come as a surprise that guys get injured and are forced to sit out. The problem is, if fights start getting called off too often it begs the question: is the UFC overextending their roster?
A case could have been made that the UFC was overextending it’s roster post UFC 100, but that probably isn’t the case anymore as the UFC has taken measure to bulk up their roster over the last year and a half.
When the UFC absorbed the WEC in late 2010 it resulted in the additions of the the featherweight and bantamweight divisions to the promotion and with that two more titles to help sell their cards.
When Jon Fitch and BJ Penn were forced to pull out of UFC 132 with injury, we saw the pay-off of having the new divisions as Dominick Cruz vs. Urijah Faber for the bantamweight title should have no problem carrying the card.
Not a company to sit back on its laurels, Zuffa LLC, the parent company of the UFC, went out and purchased Strikeforce, one of the few remaining competitors to the MMA giant earlier this year.
With the purchase of Strikeforce Zuffa now owns the rights to a host of new fighters across the lightweight to heavyweight divisions.
Dana White has gone on the record stating that it remains “business as usual” over at Strikeforce and contracts will be honored. That being said, as soon as the UFC can start pulling from Strikeforce’s roster they will be able to further ensure that cards affected by injury or illness will be much easier to repair.
Of course, sometimes, it is just a case of bad timing and not much can be done to salvage the card. Injuries far out from fight night are easier to salvage then last minute pull outs, which most definitely was the case for UFC 130 as both Edgar and Maynard were forced to pull out just three weeks before the fight.
Leon Horne has been contributing to Bleacher Report for three years now. He focuses mainly on mixed martial arts, but he has also written about tennis, football and hockey. Just send him a message if you want to talk sports or discuss any opportunities. You can follow him on Twitter for updates: 
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