It’s deja vu all over again for Erik Koch.
In late February, just 10 days before his scheduled fight with Cub Swanson at UFC on Versus 3, Swanson pulled out with an injury. With the fight rebooked for UFC 132 next month, it has happened again.
Swanson is now out of the rescheduled featherweight fight for July 2 in Las Vegas. He announced through his Twitter account that he had to pull out of the fight because of a training injury. “I broke the whole left side of my face,” Swanson said. Photos he uploaded via Twitter showed a deeply bruised left orbital area.
Swanson, who trains at the Greg Jackson camp in Albuquerque, N.M., went on to say that the injury happened in training, and that it required a seven-hour hospital visit.
Koch (12-1, 1-0 UFC), pictured, now awaits word on a new opponent for the pay-per-view, which is scheduled for the MGM Grand Garden Arena. After Swanson pulled out of their first scheduled meeting, Koch was moved to the UFC 128 card two weeks later to fill in for an injured Manny Gamburyan against Raphael Assuncao; he won with his second straight first-round KO and second straight Knockout of the Night bonus.
The Duke Roufus-trained fighter indicated on his Twitter account that he still expects to fight on the card.
Swanson (15-4, 0-0 UFC) went 5-3 in the WEC and was to be making his UFC debut. He won three Fight of the Night bonuses in his last five WEC bouts, but also suffered an 8-second flying knee knockout loss to Jose Aldo that propelled “Junior” to his featherweight title win against Mike Brown.
UFC 132 has had multiple issues with injuries and fight changes. The expected rematch between BJ Penn and Jon Fitch was scrapped when Fitch pulled out with a shoulder injury; Penn followed with an injury of his own. Evan Dunham pulled out of his lightweight bout against George Sotiropoulous and was replaced by Rafael dos Anjos. And Jason “Mayhem” Miller was scheduled to make his return to the UFC against Aaron Simpson. But he was pulled from the fight last week to instead coach Season 14 of “The Ultimate Fighter” opposite Michael Bisping. He’ll face Bisping at the TUF 14 Finale in December.
Jose Aldo has now made his UFC debut and won the UFC’s first featherweight title fight, an entertaining if not terribly competitive unanimous decision over Mark Hominick at UFC 129. So what does the UFC do with Aldo from here?
NEWARK, NJ — This is the