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UFC 296 will no longer feature a key battle of ranked contenders
Giga Chikadze vs. Josh Emmett will not be an ESPN broadcasted prizefight at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada, in the next couple of weeks.
The December 16th Las Vegas-based bout will no longer be transpiring and Emmett took to his personal X page to tweet the news out to the combat sports community.
Emmett said:
"Giga’s out. Who’s ready Dec. 16?”
The details as to why the withdrawal happened are not known as of this writing.
The preliminary featherweight fight with Emmett versus Chikadze was to pit the number six and number eight ranked 145-pound contenders, respectively, against one another. Alas, it was not to be on this 2023 ending pay-per-view offering.
Emmett looks to rebound from consecutive losses to former interim champion Yair Rodriguez and the next lineal title contender at featherweight in Ilia Topuria.
Before the bout was scrapped, Chikadze was aiming to put together back-to-back victories after a unanimous decision win over Alex Caceres in August.
Check out Emmett's X announcement of the bout cancellation below:
UFC 296 and some of the featured fights
Andre Fili versus Lucas Almeida is now the lone featherweight fight set for UFC 296 in lieu of Emmett vs Chikadze dropping off.
UFC's final PPV of the calendar year is headlined by the controversial Colby Covington in his third bid for welterweight gold. 'Chaos' will step into the octagon and look to unseat Leon' Rocky' Edwards, who aims to make his sophomore title defense.
In the looming co-main event, Alexandre Pantoja will look for that all-important first title defense and clashes with the division's number four-ranked contender. The UFC flyweight king looks to defeat Brandon Royval in a rematch after choking out Royval with a second-round rear naked choke during their initial fight in August 2021.
Shavkat Rakhmonov and Stephen Thompson will see the number five and number six welterweight contenders collide in a pivotal matchup for the heavyweight hierarchy throughout 2024.
Tony Ferguson and Paddy Pimblett will battle in an attention-grabbing lightweight bout. The former interim 155-pound champion looks to defeat the former Cage Warriors featherweight champion and hand him his first loss under the UFC banner, specifically.
Also, on the UFC 296 main card, Vicente Luque and Ian Garry will see a contest between the number eight and number ten welterweights on a card where the 170-pound crown is positioned at the top of everything.
