A fight between Kyle Daukaus and Roman Dolidze will no longer be taking place on the main card of Saturday night’s UFC Fight Night 197 event in Las Vegas.
The reason for the fight cancellation is that Dolidze had to be pulled due to Covid-19 protocols relating to someone within his fight camp, and on such short notice the UFC haven’t been able to secure a replacement for him.
Dolidze was himself a replacement for Kevin Holland, who was originally supposed to fight Daukaus in a rematch this weekend.
The two had previously fought last month at UFC Fight Night 193, but an accidental clash of heads in the first round led to Holland appearing to be KO’d for a brief moment, before instantly coming too and trying to fight on, only to be choked unconscious by Daukaus soon afterwards.
Daukaus wasn’t awarded the win however, with the referee instead declaring the fight a no-contest due to the earlier head-clash.
A rematch was surprisingly swiftly arranged, but Holland withdrew late last month due to an undisclosed injury.
At this stage it’s not clear whether the UFC will look to rebook Daukaus vs. Holland, Daukaus vs. Dolidze or put together an entirely different match-up in the weeks ahead.
The loss of Daukaus vs. Dolidze is the second blow to the UFC Fight Night 197 main card in recent days, as a fight between Philipe Lins and Ovince Saint Preux was also pulled after OSP suffered an undisclosed injury.
It remains unclear if Lins will get a late-replacement or if the promotion will just seek to move a fight from the prelims up to the main card to make up the numbers, as currently they are down to four fights on that portion of the show.
If it’s the latter then Cynthia Calvillo vs. Andrea Lee seems like an obvious choice, but there are other options.
