Next weekend’s ‘UFC On FOX 9’ event has suffered a blow as Matt Brown has had to pull out of his main card fight with Carlos Condit due to an injured back.
“Thanks for the support guys,” Brown wrote on twitter. “I regret to inform all that I am out of the fight with Condit. I herniated 2 discs in my lower back this week.
Condit also issued a statement which indicated he won’t be sticking around on the FOX card and instead will wait for Brown to heal up instead.
“I was greatly disappointed to hear of Matt Brown’s injury. This was a fight that I was looking forward to immensely, and I know it was a fight the fans have been excited to see. When the fight does happen, I promise that the wait will be worth it.
Right now I’m going to spend time with my family over the holidays, and hope that Matt heals up quickly so that we can reschedule this fight soon.”
It’s unfortunate as this was one of the best fights on the card and there’s a sizeable hole left on the televised portion of the event without it.
Scott Jorgensen Vs John Dodson, which was set to feature on the preliminary card, would have made a decent short-notice replacement, but Dodson also pulled out injured last week due to a knee injury and realistically his replacement, newcomer Zach Makovsky, isn’t established enough to feature on FOX at this stage.
As such, the UFC have instead opted to promote a lightweight fight between Joe Lauzon and Mac Danzig to the main card.
Lauzon and Danzig are in real need of a win here as both have lost their last two fights, so that should add extra spice to this encounter.
Meanwhile, the top end of the card remains the same with Demetrious Johnson defending his flyweight title against Joseph Benavidez and Urijah Faber taking on Michael MacDonald in the co-main event.
It’s worth bearing in mind however that the original intention was to lead with a lightweight title fight starring Anthony Pettis and Josh Thomson before injury also nixed that fight, so the line-up for the last FOX card of the year has changed considerably now compared to when it was first announced.
