A middleweight title fight between Chris Weidman and Lyoto Machida will no longer headline UFC 173 on May 24th in Las Vegas after the champion picked up a knee injury.
Weidman now has to undergo a minor operation and so the decision has been made to push the fight back a further six weeks to UFC 175, also in las Vegas, on July 5th.
The UFC are now scrambling to find a new headliner for UFC 173 and hope to make an announcement on that in the coming days, but it’s going to be tough to replace the originally scheduled match-up with something of a similar stature.
A heavyweight fight between Junior Dos Santos and Stipe Miocic is currently scheduled to serve as the co-main event of that show, while the UFC may now be rueing their decision to move an eagerly awaited grudge match between Wanderlei Silva and Chael Sonnen from UFC 173 to a Fight Night card a week later.
UFC 173’s loss is UFC 175’s gain though, with Weidman Vs Machida being a perfect fight to front ‘International Fight Week’ in Las Vegas which will host not one, but two events at the Mandalay Bay on the same weekend (the other being the TUF 19 Finale featuring BJ Penn Vs Frankie Edgar) along with a fan expo.
This will be Weidman’s first fight since his back-to-back victories over former long-time champion Anderson SilvaMark Munoz and Gegard Mousasi to earn his title shot.
