According to TMZ.com:
UFC’s Thiago “Pitbull” Alves will not fight at Saturday’s UFC 111, because a CAT Scan shows an irregularity in his brain … TMZ has learned.
UFC honcho Dana White tells TMZ he will fly Pitbull to a specialist for further evaluation. White says, “If it’s true, it can be career-ending.”
No one will replace Pitbull on Saturday.
UPDATE [from Luke Thomas]: As unfortunate as this may be, there is a silver lining: this fight was scheduled to take place in New Jersey where this is a competent, experienced athletic commission. There are plenty of states that do not require a CAT scan to compete professionally. While this could be tragic for Alves’ career and clearly hurts UFC 111, the upside here is that thorough athletic commission standards could be saving the life and well-being of a human being. That’s good news even when it’s bad news.
UPDATE 2: [by Anton Tabuena] – According to Kurt Pellegrino, his fight against Fabricio Camoes gets promoted to the main card. Also, MMAMania says that there’s a chance that Fitch could still fight:
“Fitch instructed to maintain weight; has offered to move up to 185 to help UFC find suitable opponent.”
UPDATE 3: [by Anton Tabuena] – The UFC comes out with an official statement. Jon Fitch will not fight:
Due to medical licensing issues, welterweight contender Thiago Alves has been pulled from his UFC 111 rematch with Jon Fitch this Saturday at Newark’s Prudential Center. There will be no replacement opponent brought in for Fitch, and the lightweight battle between New Jersey’s own Kurt Pellegrino and Fabricio Camoes will now be moved up to the Pay-Per-View portion of the card.
The UFC 111 card, which features the welterweight title fight between Georges St-Pierre and Dan Hardy and the interim heavyweight title bout between Frank Mir and Shane Carwin, will proceed with ten bouts.
UPDATE 4: [by Nick Thomas] – ATT camp wants Alves vs. Fitch at UFC 112:
TATAME.com called Ricardo Liborio, one of the American Top Team leaders.
“We’re waiting for the analyses from the commission, that is studying the case,” Liborio explains, guaranteeing that the athlete is fine. “He’s super well trained, he wanted this fight for a long time. He’s in a great shape, but it happens… It’s in God’s hands now, there’s nothing we can do”.
“He’s [Alves is] pissed off, he really wanted to fight now. After this fight, we’ll see if we can match this fight to the next UFC, in Abu Dhabi (UFC 112),” Ricardo said. “They are the two of the best welterweight fighters and this fight would determinate who’s the next in line for the title”.