Former UFC bantamweight champion Aljamain Sterling has announced that he’s had to pull out of his featherweight fight with Movsar Evloev at UFC 307 on October 5th after suffering an injury in training.
The fight had been set to be Sterling’s 2nd fight at 145bs after successfully moving up to the division with a unanimous decision victory over Calvin Kattar at UFC 300 in April.
That move up in weight had been prompted by a 135lb title loss against Sean O’Malley at UFC 292 back in August of last year, at which point he made way for his friend and teammate Merab Dvalishvili to make his own bantamweight title push.
As for Evloev, the 30-year-old has proven to be a force to be reckoned with at featherweight over the past few years, having amassed an impressive 8-fight winning streak since joining the UFC to extend his overall career record to a perfect 18-0.
Along the way he’s defeated a steadily increasing level of opposition, with his most recent wins coming against the likes of Dan Ige, Diego Lopes and Arnold Allen.
It’s not clear whether Evloev will stay on the UFC 307 card that this stage, but the fighter himself has made it clear he’s eager to still compete.
“I see Aljamain announced on his YouTube channel that he is out of the fight,” Evloev wrote on X. “I’ve been training for 4 months and would like to stay on this card and fight anybody, I’m not sure if the UFC can find someone to fight me but I worked really hard for this fight.”
Evloev has already called out Lopes for a rematch after only narrowly beating him in a short notice match-up, but having just come off a three-round decision victory over Brian Ortega this past weekend at UFC 306 he appears to have ruled himself out.
Meanwhile, UFC 307 proceeds with a card headlined by a light-heavyweight title fight between Alex Pereira and Khalil Rountree Jr, while a women’s bantmweight title clash between Raquel Pennington and Julianna Pena takes the co-main event spot.
