Hakeen Dawodu has been forced to pull out of his UFC 257 main card fight with Shane Burgos at Fight Island on January 26th.
Dawudo reportedly suffered a shoulder injury and as such the UFC are now scrambling to find a suitable replacement to keep Burgos on the line-up.
Dawudo has been making real moves in the featherweight division over the past two-and-a-half years, putting together a five-fight winning streak.
That run started with decision wins over Austin Arnett and Kyle Bochniak in 2018, a head kick TKO stoppage against Yoshinori Horie and split decision win over Julio Arce in 2019, and most recently another split decision victory over Zubaira Tukhugov last year.
On the other hand, Burgos is coming off a loss to Josh Emmett by unanimous decision in June of last year.
That being said, Burgos had won six of his previous seven fights prior to that and had been on a three-fight winning streak against Kurt Holobaugh, Cub Swanson and Makwan Amirkhani, so despite not being on the featherweight rankings, he’s still a significant player in the division.
It still remains to be seen whether the UFC will be able to get Burgos another fight at UFC 257, but in the mean time the card goes ahead with a blockbuster main event between Dustin Poirier and Conor McGregor, while Michael Chandler makes his promotional debut against Dan Hooker in the co-main event.
