A middleweight fight between Jared Cannonier and Sean Strickland has now been moved to headline UFC Fight Night 217 on December 17th at a destination still to be confirmed.
The fight had originally been scheduled to front the UFC Fight Night 212 event on October 15th, but it was cancelled recently after Strickland revealed he had gone to hospital with an infected finger, believed to have been caused by it connecting with a sparring partner’s tooth.
However, rather than seeking an alternative fight for Cannonier the UFC have exercised patience and that’s enabled them to rebook the bout for what appears to be their final event of 2022.
It comes at a time when Cannonier is coming off an unsuccessful attempt to seize the title from Israel Adesanya in July, losing out by unanimous decision.
Before that the 38-year-old Cannonier had won back-to-back fights, winning on the scorecards against Kelvin Gastelum and then KO’ing Derek Brunson, and as such he still remains the No.2 contender in the division heading into this bout.
Meanwhile, Strickland also had title aspirations after compiling a six-fight winning streak that had seen him beat the likes of Brendan Allen, Uriah Hall and Jack Hermansson, but his plans were derailed in his last fight after suffering a first round KO loss to Alex Pereira.
