Reigning Light Heavyweight champion Daniel Cormier has withdrawn from his title defence bout at UFC 206 against Anthony ‘Rumble’ Johnson due to an injury. The match was scheduled to take place on the 10th of December at the Air Canada Centre in Toronto, Canada.
The nature of his injury is currently undisclosed and it is being rumoured that it may require surgery. As a result, Cormier is expected to be out of action for a minimum of four to six weeks.
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Daniel Cormier had also previously withdrawn from a title defence at UFC 197, where he was supposed to face Jon Jones for their rematch. Cormier withdrawing from UFC 206 thus marks the second time this year that he has done so.
Anthony ‘Rumble’ Johnson, was facing Cormier for the 205-pound title in what was also being billed as a rematch. The two had previously locked horns at UFC 187, where Cormier had won the fight in the third round via Submission, capturing the Light Heavyweight title vacated by Jon Jones.
Rumble tweeted out the following in response to Cormier pulling out of the event:
Cormier responded by apologising and tweeted the following:
The UFC 206 card is not in a good place right now, with Rashad Evans also having withdrawn from the event just a few days ago, Evans was supposed to face Tim Kennedy but couldn’t compete due to not being given a license to do so.
UFC seems to be wanting to hold on to Rumble for the event and are currently working on announcing a new main event just two weeks before the pay per view.
A potential bout that is being spoken of is Anthony ‘Rumble’ Johnson vs. Tim Kennedy, as both were scheduled to be fighting at the event and are currently without a match, due to having their respective partners pull out.
Tim Kennedy fights at Middleweight, however, so it’ll be interesting to see how the UFC makes this fight happen if he indeed happens to be the man that steps up to a Light-Heavyweight Rumble for the main event.
Another potential main event could have involved Middleweight champion Michael Bisping fighting Georges St. Pierre. Bisping had called out GSP earlier, wanting a ‘superfight’ at UFC 206. GSP had responded saying that he was definitely interested, but Dana White had stated that the fight would not be happening.
MMA Journalist Ariel Helwani summed up the UFC’s predicament with the GSP situation, following recent developments:
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