An injury to UFC featherweight Leonard ‘Bad Boy’ Garcia (15-8-1) has forced the Greg Jackson’s fighter out of his upcoming UFC 144: Edgar vs. Henderson bout versus Chinese fighter ‘The Mongolian Wolf’ Tiequan Zhang (15-2).
News of Garcia’s injury was confirmed by MMAWeekly.com who spoke to sources close to the fight on Monday.
UFC Japan is scheduled to take place on February 25, 2012 at the Saitama Super Arena in Saitama, Japan. The event is the first show in the “Land of the Rising Sun” since UFC 29 back in December 2000. The bout between Garcia and Zhang was scheduled for the preliminary card.
Garcia is 1-3 in his last four fights which includes two “Fight of the Night” awards, both of which were against TUF 12 fighter Nam Phan. The ‘Bad Boy’ has lost his last two, both of which were rematches in bouts that he had originally won. Most recently he lost a decision to Phan at UFC 136, and previous to that he lost a rematch against Chan Sung Jung at UFN 24 in March of last year via twister submission.
No new opponent has surfaced for Zhang who is 1-1 in the Octagon. The Chinese fighter lost a unanimous decision to Darren Elkins last October at UFC 136 and earned a win in his UFC debut at UFC 127 over Jason Reinhardt. ‘The Mongolian Wolf’ had dropped to featherweight for that fight, after going 1-1 in the WEC as a lightweight.