First, Tony Ferguson. Now, Max Holloway.
UFC president Dana White announced Friday that Holloway has been declared medically unfit to fight and has been pulled from this Saturday’s UFC 223 main event bout against Khabib Nurmagomedov.
Holloway, the current UFC featherweight champion, replaced Ferguson on short notice earlier this week after the latter suffered a knee injury that forced him from the card. It’s unclear at this point whether Nurmagomedov still will fight Saturday, as a new main event has not yet been announced.
Both of the previously scheduled fights were supposed to be for the UFC lightweight championship. Conor McGregor held the undisputed lightweight title after defeating Eddie Alvarez at UFC 205 in November 2016, and Ferguson held the interim title after defeating Kevin Lee at UFC 216 in October 2017, but White was adamant Saturday’s main event would be for the belt.
Nurmagomedov successfully made weight Friday, but Holloway couldn’t safely make the 155-pound limit, which isn’t all that surprising given he took the fight on six days’ notice. Now, White must figured out what to do, as this week has become a disaster for UFC.
Michael Chiesa and Ray Borg were forced to withdraw from their respective bouts after suffering injuries Thursday during McGregor’s violent bus attack. Artem Lobov, a teammate and close friend of McGregor, also was pulled from the card for his involvement in the incident.
For those in search of good news, both Rose Namajunas and Joanna Jedrzejczyk made weight Friday. Namajunas will defend her UFC women’s strawweight title against Jedrzejczyk on Saturday.
