Siyar Bahadurzada Injury Further Weakens The UFC 149 Fight Card

Siyar Bahadurzada has picked up an injury that will make him the latest in a long list of fighter’s who’ve had to withdraw from the main card of UFC 149 on July 21st.

Bahadurzada will now be replaced by Matt Riddle against Chris Clements at the show in Calgary in Canada.

The main card of UFC 149 is now virtually unrecognizable from the originally planned line-up as you can see below.

UFC 149 (Original Fight Card):

Jose Aldo Vs Erik Koch
Thiago Silva Vs Mauricio ‘Shogun’ Rua
Michael Bisping Vs Tim Boetsch
Cheick Kongo Vs Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira
Yoshihiro Akiyama Vs Thiago Alves

UFC 149 (Card As Of Today):

Urijah Faber Vs Renan Barao
Hector Lombard Vs Tim Boetsch
Claude Patrick Vs James Head
Court McGee Vs Nick Ring
Cheick Kongo Vs Shawn Jordan

A you can see the UFC had originally planned a star-studded main card full of enticing fights for their first visit to Canada, whereas now it’s looking very lopsided, relying heavily on an interim-title clash between Faber and Barao to bring credibility to a line-up that quickly fades into prelim / ‘Fight Night’ quality bouts.

It’s the last thing the promotion needed after already having to deal with a similar injury-jinx for both UFC 146 and UFC 147 in particular, and leaves a lot riding on next weekend’s UFC 148 event to hit the ball out of the park in order to make up for the short-fall in pay-per-view sales that’s likely to occur from these other mid-year shows.

Ross launched MMA Insight (previously FightOfTheNight.com) in 2009 as a way to channel his passion for the sport of mixed martial arts. He's since penned countless news stories and live fight reports along with dozens of feature articles as the lead writer for the site, reaching millions of fans in the process.