A pair of injuries to Ultimate Fighting Championship fighters has
forced an unplanned matchup up a division in a week.
On Thursday night, Bill Algeo
(15-6) posted on his
Instagram Stories that his opponent, Billy
Quarantillo, had been forced out of their featherweight match.
Per MMA
Junkie shortly after Algeo’s post, the reason was reportedly
due to injury. Additionally, Khusein
Askhabov posted a photo of himself on Instagram still in
Thailand with his brother, where he was wearing a sling on his arm.
His bantamweight bout with Herbert
Burns (11-3) was at risk of falling through as well, and
according to
MMA Fighting, Burns will no longer be facing Askhabov.
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Algeo announced on his OnlyFans page
that he will be squaring off with Burns at this event on July 16.
The fight card, titled UFC on ABC 3, will go on at the UBS Arena in
Long Island, N.Y. Their clash has been changed to a featherweight
matchup in Algeo’s initial weight class, and Burns will not have to
cut weight down to 135 pounds.
“Senor Perfecto” has alternated wins and losses in his last seven,
which includes the entirety of his UFC run plus his 2019 appearance
on Dana White’s Contender Series. Although he lost
on DWCS, a win over Tim Dooling
a year later prompted his short-notice signing against Ricardo
Lamas about two weeks later. Win or lose, the last six outings
for Algeo have ended by decision.
Burns, a fighter that missed weight by nearly four pounds in his
last time out, is making his return to the cage after nearly two
years away. In that last fight, a second-round knockout to Daniel
Pineda, Burns had a five-fight finish streak snapped. “The
Blaze” worked his way to the UFC ranks with a pair of decent
performances at Titan Fighting Championships, and his own
victory at the same season of DWCS as Algeo prompted his signing.
Before that loss to Pineda, Burns had clobbered Nate
Landwehr with a knee and tapped Evan Dunham
in 80 seconds, although the latter came at 150 pounds.
UFC on ABC 3 goes down at the UBS Arena in Elmont, N.Y., with a
featherweight headliner on tap between Brian
Ortega and Yair
Rodriguez. The co-headlining spot goes to strawweights when
Michelle
Waterson takes on Amanda
Lemos. Additional bouts featured on the main card include a
welterweight contest pitting Jingliang
Li against Muslim
Salikhov, a pivotal flyweight affair when Matt
Schnell meets Su Mudaerji
and a sure-fire banger at 145 pounds as Shane
Burgos takes on Charles
Jourdain.