Last week, UFC Bantamweight Eddie Wineland was poised to be the next challenger to Renan Barao’s interim title. Unfortunately, an injury to Barao forced the champ from the UFC 161 headliner. With Renan out, the UFC decided not to schedule a replacement Bantamweight fight for the main card, leaving Wineland without an opponent and a title shot.
On Tuesday’s episode of UFC Tonight, Ariel Helwani related Wineland’s response to the situation:
He said it’s crushing to him. He said it’s like dangling a piece of cake in front of fat kid for months, and then not letting him eat it. He wants to wait for Barao if it doesn’t take too long for him to recover from the injury. But, I talked to current champ Dominick Cruz and his recovery is going well. He’s hoping to come back before the end of the year. Then he’d get fight Barao, instead of Wineland.
Instead of finding a replacement for Barao, the UFC chose to bring in Heavyweight Roy Nelson to face Stipe Miocic and make the PPV card 6 fights with Rashad Evans vs. Dan Henderson promoted to the main event. Miocic was slated to fight Soa Palalei in a preliminary fight and now “The Hulk” is also left in the lurch. The show will go down on June 15 at the MTS Centre in Winnipeg, Canada.