It’s finally official – Conor McGregor has suffered an injury that’s forced his fight with Michael Chandler in the main event of UFC 303 on June 29th in Las Vegas to be canceled.
It’s the news many had feared since a press conference between the two was scrapped on the day it was supposed to take place in Dublin, Ireland a couple of weeks ago.
Reading between the lines many had figured out since then that McGregor had picked up some kind of injury, and that’s now proven to be the case, though there’s no more word on what it is or how long it might take for him to recover from.
UFC officials have been hard at work behind the scenes in recent days trying to find a suitable replacement to front a UFC 303 line-up that will serve as the main attraction for their annual International Fight Week celebrations in Las Vegas, though the reality is that no other fight they could put on can replace the hype, expectation and potential pay-per-view sales of McGregor’s return.
Nevertheless, a light-heavyweight title rematch between current champion Alex Pereira and Jiri Prochazka has now been drafted in on just two weeks notice to serve as the main event.
The two previously fought at UFC 295 in November of last year to see who would claim the vacant 205lb title, and it was Pereira who emerged victorious courtesy of a 2nd round TKO finish.
Pereira has since gone on to successfully defend the title by KO’ing another former champion Jamahal Hill in the first round of UFC 300’s main event, while Prochazka got back to winning ways at the same event with a TKO victory over Aleksander Rakic.
