If all goes according to plan then Mark Hunt will compete in the biggest fight of his UFC career so far against Junior Dos Santos at UFC 160 on May 25th, but visa issues have put a potential spanner in the works.
Hunt was prevented from traveling to the U.S from New Zealand last week due to a bar-room brawl incident from a decade ago which put his travel visa in jeopardy and remains there for the time being as the UFC attempts to resolve the issue.
“This isn’t the first time we’ve had to deal with travel, visa issues,” the UFC’s Director Of Communications Dave Sholler stated during a media press call yesterday, “To put anything to rest, we are confident the issue will be resolved and anticipate Mark competing in the co-main event. Mark will be making his way to the U.S. this week.”
Despite that assurance the UFC aren’t taking any chances and it was revealed on last night’s edition of ‘UFC Tonight’ on Fuel TV that the UFC have spoken to Roy Nelson about coming in as a late replacement if Hunt is unable to get to Las Vegas in time for the show.
Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that as that would lead to a rather dubious double-bill of heavyweight rematches leading the PPV show, with Cain Velasquez having already soundly beaten Antonio Silva just a year ago, while Dos Santos used Nelson as a human punching bag back at UFC 117 in 2010.
Mark Hunt for one appears to be convinced it won’t come to that though.
“It is a stupid misunderstanding is all it is,” he said on yesterday’s media call. “It should be cleared up. Hopefully I can fly out of here sometime this week, tonight, tomorrow, whenever.”
