UFC 227 has suffered a blow with the news that Volkan Oezdemir has been forced to pull out of his fight with Alexander Gustafsson on the main card of the event on August 4th in Los Angeles.
It’s believed that Oezdemir has suffered a broken nose in training, ruling him out of the fight and leaving the UFC to scramble to find another opponent to ensure that Gustafsson is able to remain on the pay-per-view line-up.
It’s a real blow for Oezdemir, who would have been hoping to finally get back to a more settled fight schedule after all the disruption that his recent legal issues (relating to a fight outside a bar – the resulting charges from which were recently dropped) that led to him twice being forced out of a match-up against Mauricio ‘Shogun’ Rua.
As for Gustafsson, he hasn’t fought since a May 2017 win over Glover Teixeira, so he’ll surely be hoping that a suitable opponent can be found sooner rather than later, and one that will be still be meaningful enough to continue his push for another shot at challenging for the light-heavyweight title.
For the time being though, UFC 227 proceeds with a card that includes bantamweight champion TJ Dillashaw rematching Cody Garbrandt and flyweight kingpin Demetrious Johnson also facing Henry Cejudo for the second time in his career.
