The Ultimate Fighting Championship was quick to
keep its upcoming pay-per-view lineup to a lucky 13 fights.
According to her Instagram on
Thursday, Joanne Wood
has been forced out of her flyweight fight at
UFC 291 against Priscila
Cachoeira (12-4). In her place, as first reported by
MMA Fighting, is Miranda
Maverick (11-5). Maverick confirmed this news
of this July 29 pairing shortly after it broke on Thursday, and she
will be taking this bout on a little over two weeks’ notice.
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“Gutted to find out that I won’t be fighting July 29th,” Wood wrote
on her Instagram page. “It
is what it is and I’m going to try not dwell on this as it was out
of my control. I invested and done everything I could and was ready
for what was maybe going to be my last fight. I loved the extra
altitude training that I went all in on to make sure I was best
prepared and was feeling great with no injuries. If only fight
camps went on your record (and you got paid for them) I’m pretty
sure I’m in the triple digits by now.”
Maverick will be looking to put a recent decision defeat to
Jasmine Jasudavicius behind her when she steps up on late
notice. The loss to the Canadian put an end to a two-fight win
streak, where she tapped out Sabina Mazo
and prevailed on the scorecards over Shanna
Young to complete a solid 2022 campaign. Before that, she
dropped two of three in 2021 against Maycee
Barber and Erin
Blanchfield, although in the former,
every scoring media member believed Maverick had done enough to
get the nod over Barber.
Remaining in place for her first appearance of the year, Brazil’s
Cachoeira is aiming to rack up another win to boost her streak to
three straight. When she came to the promotion back in 2018,
“Zombie Girl” lost three times, and her status on the roster was in
question. Since then, she has strung together four victories in
five outings, with that lone loss a submission setback to Gillian
Robertson that saw her gouge the eyes of her opponent
repeatedly before tapping out. Most recently, Cachoeira pounded out
Ariane
Lipski back in August 2022.
UFC 291 will play out at the Vivant Arena in Salt Lake City on July
29. In a rarity for the promotion, no official championship belt
will be on the line throughout this pay-per-view attraction. To
counter this, the UFC will be offering the victor of Dustin
Poirier and Justin
Gaethje the “vacant BMF belt” which was previously held by
Jorge
Masvidal after beating Nate Diaz in
2019. The co-featured matchup comes at 205 pounds, as former champ
Jan
Blachowicz welcomes ex-middleweight king Alex
Pereira to a new weight class.