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#1 Worst: Montano’s weight issues cause another main event cancellation
When it was announced on Friday afternoon that UFC Women’s Flyweight champion Nicco Montano had been hospitalized due to a botched weight cut, thus forcing the UFC to cancel her planned title fight with challenger Valentina Shevchenko – the co-main event of UFC 228 – the first thought in the mind of most fans was “here we go again”.
Perhaps no other year in UFC history has felt quite so cursed as 2018. Thus far we’ve had 9 pay-per-view shows, and 5 of them have seen either the main event or co-main event either canceled or changed at late notice due to injuries or weight-cutting issues. Like July’s UFC 226, there was no replacing Montano vs. Shevchenko and so UFC 228 went on with no true co-main event.
If we’re being frank nobody was really ordering the show to see the fight – it was expected to be a one-sided win for Shevchenko – but the cancellation remains the worst thing about the show because it means that Montano – who’s now been stripped of her title – goes down as yet another UFC champion who couldn’t even manage a single defense of her crown.
The UFC went for years without this – inaugural Middleweight champ Dave Menne was usually considered the de facto “worst” UFC champ of all time – but in comparison to someone like Montano, he now looks fantastic.
Naturally, the division will go on – Shevchenko has been promised a title shot against someone else, maybe top-ranked Sijara Eubanks – but the fact that we lost yet another title fight in 2018 absolutely sucks.
