The blows keep on coming for the UFC in 2025.
After losing its first pay-per-view main event of the new year on just 24 hours’ notice last month in Los Angeles, the opening week of February has seen the mixed martial arts dealt two hits to its Q1 calendar in the form of canceled main and co-main events.
On Wednesday, former flyweight title challenger Brandon Royval revealed in an Instagram post that injury has forced him out of a main event opposite Manel Kape at the Apex on March 1.
Just hours on, the UFC’s event in Seattle on Feb. 22 has reportedly lost its bantamweight co-headliner between the legendary Dominick Cruz and perennial contender Rob Font.
The bout was set to mark “The Dominator’s” return after two and a half years away, and expected to serve as his retirement fight.
But per Cageside Press, a familiar foe in the injury curse has struck the 39-year-old just weeks out.
With no timeframe attached to Cruz’s recovery as of writing, it remains to be seen whether the promotion plans to seek a replacement opponent for Font or reschedule his matchup with the former champ for a later date.
With this cancellation, the current fights expected to take place at the UFC Fight Night in Seattle on Feb. 22 are as follows:
- Henry Cejudo vs. Song Yadong
- Brendan Allen vs. Anthony Hernandez
- Jean Silva vs. Melsik Baghdasaryan
- Curtis Blaydes vs. Rizvan Kuniev
- Edson Barboza vs. Steve Garcia
- Ion Cu?elaba vs. Ibo Aslan
- Adam Fugitt vs. Billy Goff
- Ketlen Vieira vs. Macy Chiasson
- Ricky Simón vs. Javid Basharat
- Mansur Abdul-Malik vs. Nick Klein
- Modestas Bukauskas vs. Raffael Cerqueira
- Andre Fili vs. Melquizael Costa