Marlon Vera Out Of Mario Bautista Fight At UFC 316

UFC 316 has lost one of it’s main card match-ups after Marlon Vera had to withdraw from his fight against Mario Bautista at the show in Newark, New Jersey on June 7th for undisclosed reasons.

The 32-year-old Vera had been heading into the fight after suffering back-to-back defeats in his last two Octagon appearances, starting with an unsuccessful attempt to win the bantamweight title in a rematch with Sean O’Malley last March.

Vera lost by unanimous decision that night, and has since gone to lose another fight on the scorecards against Deiveson Figueiredo last August.

As a result Vera has now slipped down to No.7 in the 135lb rankings and had been set to fight the 31-year-old Bautista, who is currently ranked No.10.

Bautista is currently on a seven-fight winning streak that culminated last time out in a split-decision win over Jose Aldo at UFC 307.

As things stand it’s not clear if Bautista will remain on the card, but it seems likely that could be the case given that there’s still the best part of four weeks to go until fight night.

For now though the UFC 316 card proceed with a line-up that will be fronted by a bantamweight title rematch between Merab Dvalishvili and Sean O’Malley, while a women’s bantamweight title clash between Julianna Pena and Kayla Harrison serves as the co-main event.