Jared Gordon has been pulled from his fight with Jim Miller at this weekend’s UFC On ESPN 46 event soon after acknowledging n a pre-fight interview that he’d recently been dealing with a ‘minor concussion’ recently related to his last fight with Bobby Green.
It’s was surprising that the relatively short-notice fight was booked in the first place given that Gordon was clearly flash KO’d due to an accidental headbutt and follow-up ground-and-pound in that bout just six weeks ago, leading to a no-contest.
Being offered a fight against Miller on just 17 days notice seemed like a bad idea, and though Gordon was eager to get back into the cage and try to cast aside his recent disappointments, his pre-fight comments seem to confirm that he should never have been given the opportunity in the first place.
“I had a minor concussion, but I got over the symptoms fairly quickly,” Gordon said in his media interview for Saturday night’s show. “I did everything I could to recover; supplements, I was in a hyperbaric chamber for the last six weeks. At this point my career, I was like—sometimes you gotta risk it a little bit, right, to get what you want? I think a little bit of risk is not too bad. I’m risking it anyways going in there, even if I didn’t have that outcome six weeks ago. So, I’m like, ‘Let’s do it.’
“And this is what we do. We fight, I make a living doing this, that’s another reason to do it. They gave me a new contract, the UFC; another deal, and a bump in pay, and I think it was worth it. I should have been 3-0 on that [previous] contract. I beat Leo Santos, I beat Paddy—but I lost—and then this one, I was on my way to winning the Bobby one. So I would have had leverage. I was 1-1-0 (1 NC) after that.
“This was just a great opportunity for me to get another contract and get back in there with a legend in Jim Miller. And I think, stylistically, it’s a great fight for me.”
With Gordon out, Miller will now fight a newcomer in Jesse Butler, who holds a 12-4 record.
