UFC 151, originally set to go down on September 1, has been canceled due to an injury suffered by Dan Henderson.
The event could have been saved when Chael Sonnen accepted the offer to supplant Henderson as the opponent to Jon Jones, but Jones declined that fight, citing the short-notice of opponent-change as his reasoning.
Someone who knows a thing or two about taking on Sonnen with a week-or-so’s notice is middleweight contender Michael Bisping.
Bisping had been tapped to take on jiu-jitsu star Demian Maia at UFC on FOX 2 earlier this year, but was asked to swap opponents when Mark Munoz went down with an injury. Chris Weidman stepped in for Bisping against Maia, and the Brit slid in to face Sonnen.
There’s a lot of stepping up to the plate in that scenario—all four guys had fights they didn’t know they would have until about two weeks before the fact, Weidman not even knowing he had a fight to begin with.
Unfortunately, Jones refused to follow in the footsteps of this quartet of middleweights, and Bisping for one, is not impressed.
The Count took to Twitter to remind fans that accepting such a fight would not have been all that crazy of an idea, referencing his own experience as precedent:
“Jones said he’s not fighting chael on 8 days notice. I did. …. Just sayin”
This isn’t the only backlash Jones has received for his decision, nor is it likely to be the end of it.
Fellow fighters, the UFC brass and fight fans have collectively expressed their disgust at Jones’ choice, and as Bisping points out, not without good reason.
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