If you were trawling through the internet searching for any potential updates on a possible fight between Donald Cerrone and Khabib Nurmagomedov, you probably saw this tweet from Fox Sports’ Mike Chiappetta, who said that the bout would take place at UFC 178 in Las Vegas:
Khabib vs. Cerrone at UFC 178. You like? Good, it’s done. Now back to semi-vacation … #ICantQuitYouMMA
— Mike Chiappetta MMA (@MikeChiappetta) July 18, 2014
A great fight added to an increasingly strong PPV headlined by the Jon Jones and Alexander Gustafsson rematch. Unfortunately, in the UFC Fight Night: Dublin pre-fight scrum with Dana White, it appears that Nurmagomedov injured his knee and the plans have gone up in smoke:
White: Khabib Nurmagomedov blew his knee out 20 minutes after deal was done
— MMAFighting.com (@MMAFighting) July 18, 2014
Whether or not White is exaggerating the “literally 20 minutes after he signed the deal” is frankly irrelevant, because the bigger story is that if Khabib’s knee injury is as serious as it sounds, he’ll be out for the rest of the year having fought just once in 2014.
White later added that Cerrone will be fighting someone else, and called a rematch with Nate Diaz “ridiculous”. At a guess, if Josh Thomson gets past Bobby Green at UFC on Fox 12, Cerrone vs. Thomson could be next. Even Cerrone against Michael Johnson, who is recovering from his own injury that prevented him from fighting Thomson, is a good match-up.
Alas, the good news from earlier this morning regarding Cerrone vs. Nurmagomedov has been replaced with the unfortunate turn-of-events that leaves Nurmagomedov on the sidelines in the long-term and this fight off the table.
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