Paige VanZant has been forced to pull out of her upcoming fight with Jessica Eye at UFC 216 on October 7th in Las Vegas after suffering an injury in training.
The 23-year-old PVZ is believed to have an intervertebral disc injury in her back while grappling and as such has now been sidelined for several weeks, ruling her out of the event at the T-Mobile Arena early next month.
The fight had been set to be both competitors first in the UFC’s newly installed flyweight division, with VanZant stepping up from flyweight, while Eye was going to be dropping down from bantamweight.
For both fighters this was seen as a fresh start to get back to winning ways after PVZ lost two of her last three fights against Rose Namajunas and Michelle Waterson, while Eye had lost five or her last six.
As things stand it looks like the UFC could look to book this fight at a later date, due to the fact that they don’t appear to be looking to find a late replacement opponent to keep Eye on the card.
As such, UFC 216 now proceeds with twelve fights, including the interim lightweight headliner between Tony Ferguson and Kevin Lee and flyweight champion Demetrious Johnson going for a record 11th successful title defense in a row against Ray Borg.
