MMA Fighting’s Ariel Helwani reported on UFC Tonight on Fox Sports 1 that UFC Featherweight champ Jose Aldo is injured and his UFC 176 headliner against Chad Mendes is cancelled.
This is terrible news for Jose Aldo fans who have had to endure cancelled fight after long injury induced layoffs between rare opportunites to see their man in the Octagon. Since becoming the UFC Featherweight champ in 2010 after moving over from Zuffa-owned WEC, Aldo has fought six times in four years. Once in February of this year, twice in 2013, once in 2012 and twice in 2011.
Aldo has been forced to pull out of UFC 125, UFC 149, UFC 153, and now UFC 176.
No word on the nature of his injury or the expected date of the rescheduled fight. It’s entirely possible that Mendes will have to fight again before Aldo recovers and risk his title shot opportunity.
This is also bad news for the UFC with Heavyweight champ Cain Velasquez, Welterweight champ Johny Hendricks and Lightweight champ Anthony Pettis all on the shelf with injuries.
It also leaves the August 2nd UFC 176 pay per view without a headliner. Here’s the rest of the card as it stands now:
Gegard Mousasi vs. Ronaldo “Jacare” Souza
Bobby Green vs. Abel Trujillo
Jussier Formiga vs. Zach Makovsky
Gray Maynard vs. Fabricio Camoes
Danny Castillo vs. Tony Ferguson
James Vick vs. Walmir Lazaro
Lorenz Larkin vs. Derek Brunson
Bethe Correia vs. Shayna Baszler
Beneil Dariush vs. Tony Martin
There are some fine fights on this card but nothing remotely resembling a PPV headliner.
The UFC has previously cancelled an August PPV on very short notice when Dan Henderson pulled out of a UFC 151 bout against Jon Jones and Jones refused to face Chael Sonnen on short notice. UFC 151 never happened.
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