The woes continue for the injury plagued UFC 180 event in Mexico on November 15th as now Diego Sanchez has pulled out of the event too.
Sanchez had already seen two potential match-ups at the event fall through after both Myles Jury and then Joe Lauzon both succumbed to injuries, and now it’s turn with the fighter reporting that he’s torn a knee ligament.
“To all my fans I hurt my knee tuesday I tried to tough it out But it was worse than I had hoped a torn lcl… I’m very disappointed,” Sanchez announced on Twitter.
UFC 180 will be the UFC’s first ever trip to Mexico, a destination they have been eager to break into for many years, and they had hoped to make a big splash there with a major pay-per-view card.
However, luck has not been on their side since UFC heavyweight champion and TUF: Latin America coach Cain Velasquez withdrew with a knee injury last week.
He’s since been replaced by Mark Hunt who’ll now compete for the interim heavyweight title against Fabricio Werdum, but as far as the Mexican audience is concerned nobody will be able to fill their hero Velasquez’s shoes.
Sanchez was arguably the second most notable fighter with Mexican heritage on the card and people had been looking forward to his fight with Lauzon, so to lose them both from the line-up will be hard to take.
Worryingly, with only three weeks to go until the event there are currently now only six fights officially booked for the show, with Jake Ellenberger Vs Kelvin Gastelum serving as the co-main event and Dennis Bermudez Vs Ricardo Lamas being the only other two fights that seems worthy of a pay-per-view broadcast.
So, the UFC have some serious work to do in order to turn things around and time is running short.
