A light-heavyweight fight between former champion Jan Blachowicz and Aleksander Rakic will no longer headline UFC On ESPN 33 on March 26th after Blachowicz was forced out of the bout due to an undisclosed injury.
The fight had been expected to be Blachowicz’s first since he lost his title to Glover Teixeira by way of a rear-naked choke submission in October last year.
The 38-year-old had previously won the vacant title with a TKO victory against Dominick Reyes in 2020 and then successfully defended it against middleweight champ Israel Adesanya in March of last year.
As for Rakic, he was coming in off back-to-back decision wins against former title contenders Anthony Smith and Thiago Santos, and it’s reported that the UFC’s current plans are to keep him lined up against Blachowicz for his next fight, but postpone it to a later date.
Meanwhile, the UFC have managed to book another notable fight for the event, with Neil Magny set to fight Max Griffin.
Magny is coming off a decision win against Geoff Neal in May of last year and had been hoping to land a fight against Khamzat chimaev, but the No.8 ranked welterweight will instead have to settle for going up against the unranked Griffin, who is riding a three-fight winning streak, including a decision win against Carlos Condit last time out.
