On Wednesday news broke that UFC Heavyweight Alistair Overeem was forced to pull out of his UFC 160 fight with former champion Junior Dos Santos. The Reem tore his quadricep in training, an injury that should take him 4-5 weeks to rehabilitate.
Immediately after the announcement of the bout’s cancellation, the internet took arms in another “Rally For Mark Hunt”, pleading with UFC Dana White to replace Alistair with the heavy-handed Samoan. After being reached by Ariel Helwani on whether or not he’d be willing to fight Dos Santos, Hunt said “I was born down. You know this.” So, it came as a big surprise to fans on Thursday, when White claimed that Hunt had turned down the fight.
Mark spoke out against Dana’s statement on Twitter:
The denial seemed to have caught Dana’s eye as he updated on his own Twitter just a couple hours later:
Obviously, there’s a lot of ambiguity in what a “GREAT conversation” means. For those keeping their fingers crossed for a JDS vs. Hunt match, I wouldn’t hold my breath. However, it seems possible that Hunt could get a different high profile fight on the UFC 160 card in May.