Tonight’s Jeremy Stephens x Drakkar Klose
fight has been canceled, per the broadcast.Klose suffered an injury as a result of this push at yesterday’s
official weigh-ins, per sources. Specific injury details not
disclosed at this time. pic.twitter.com/ImbpMQxHur— Ariel Helwani (@arielhelwani)
April 17, 2021
Last week, UFC on ESPN 22 lost a fight due to an incident that
occurred at weigh-ins.
On Friday, Jeremy
Stephens shoved Drakkar
Klose during their face-off, which resulted in Klose having to
withdraw from the fight. Klose said that he immediately felt
his hand go numb and his neck tighten up after the shove, and the
next day he suffered from nausea and a migraine. His team revealed
that the fighter was diagnosed
with a “brain concussion” and “sprain of cervical neck” as a
result.
According to Dana White, matchmaker Sean Shelby was to blame for
not preventing the weigh-in altercation between Stephens and
Klose.
“Sean Shelby missed that one. Sean Shelby, you know, Sean and I see
the thing differently,” White told TSN.
“I saw it on social media and called him immediately. I was at my
daughter’s [event] … I was in Orlando at the ESPN cheerleading
competition. I saw the thing happen on social media and I called
Sean and was like, ‘Dude, where was your head on that one?’”
While shoving incidents at weigh-ins are not all that uncommon and
sometimes serve to build extra hype for a fight, White believes
Shelby should have known better considering the participants.
“He was coming in hot, and it’s Jeremy Stephens. He’s a savage,”
White said. “I mean, yeah, we’re not standing there to look good
and take pictures. We are there to make sure that doesn’t
happen.”
The UFC is expected to rebook Stephens vs. Klose as soon as
possible.
“He’s a young, healthy guy. He’ll get better,” White said. “But
it’s unfortunate and it should have never happened.”