Things definitely haven’t gone as planned for the
Ultimate Fighting Championship in June.
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The biggest setback for the promotion occurred last week, when
Conor
McGregor officially withdrew from his headlining clash against
Michael
Chandler at UFC 303
due to injury. The former two-division champ is the UFC’s biggest
star, but he hasn’t competed for nearly three years since breaking
his leg in July 2021. While McGregor vowed to be back soon in a
statement released on social media, the exact nature of his injury
— as well as a timeline for his recovery — is unclear.
After a hectic couple of weeks, UFC CEO Dana White won’t speculate
on when McGregor might be ready to return to action.
“It’s the business, man. This is the way it goes,” White told the
Sports Business Journal. “And from here on I’m
not going to talk about it until when he’s healed and he’s right.
Then we’ll look at the landscape and see what we can figure
out.”
The promotion was able to pivot quickly after McGregor’s
withdrawal, scheduling a light heavyweight championship rematch
between Alex
Pereira and Jiri
Prochazka on short notice for the new UFC 303 main event. A
featherweight clash pitting Brian
Ortega against Diego Lopes
was also added to the card.
Meanwhile, the UFC’s
debut event in Saudi Arabi also lost one-half of its featured
attraction last week when Khamzat
Chimaev withdrew from a proposed middleweight clash against
Robert
Whittaker due to severe illness. Once again, the UFC was able
to salvage the headliner by booking Ikram
Aliskerov against Whittaker on Saturday.
All things considered, White is happy with the way things turned
out under adverse circumstances.
“It’s been interesting because we had to switch the Saudi main
event, which is next weekend, you know what I mean?” White said.
“It’s f—-ing days away, so for us to put in this guy [Ikram
Aliskerov] who is 15-1, he’s Muslim and his only loss is to Khamzat
Chimaev, and everyone in the division said no to fighting him
except Robert Whittaker [is a good result]. … I’m very happy [with
the quality of the replacement fights].”