Chris Weidman vs. Uriah Hall is being moved.
The fight, which was scheduled for UFC 258 on Feb. 13, has been
canceled, sources say, after Weidman tested positive for COVID-19
recently. The current plan is for the fight to be moved to UFC 261
on April 24, according to sources.— Ariel Helwani (@arielhelwani)
January 29, 2021
Sign up for ESPN+ right here, and you can then stream the UFC live on
your smart TV, computer, phone, tablet or streaming device via the
ESPN app. The co-main event of UFC
258 just fell off the card thanks to the coronavirus.
ESPN announced on Friday that Chris
Weidman (15-5) vs. Uriah Hall
(16-9) 2, a rematch booked for UFC 258, will no longer be happening
on that card. Testing positive for COVID-19, Weidman has been
removed from the Feb. 13 event and he will not be replaced.
The promotion is currently targeting UFC 261
on April 24 for the relisting of the middleweight match, but the
fighters have not signed yet. That card may take place in
Singapore, as first reported by journalist John Hyon Ko, but that plan is
still in the works.
Weidman was looking to extend his win streak to two, which would be
his longest in over five years. The former middleweight king, who
went a perfect 13-0 before his first defeat, has struggled ever
since Luke
Rockhold knocked him out in 2015. Four subsequent knockout
losses to Yoel Romero,
Gegard
Mousasi, Ronaldo
Souza and Dominick
Reyes haunted the one-time light heavyweight. A submission over
Kelvin
Gastelum in 2017, and most recently, a decision victory against
Omari
Akhmedov in August 2020, have kept his career afloat. The
36-year-old New Yorker has already defeated Hall once, knocking out
his foe in just over three minutes in 2010.
A finalist of Season 17 of “The Ultimate Fighter,” Hall is on
arguably his best win streak of his career at the moment. In 2018,
Hall knocked out Bevon Lewis
to start the winning stretch, and he has followed with a split
decision against Antonio
Carlos Jr. and a knockout of Anderson
Silva in October 2020 to rise up the ranks. “Primetime” sports
a 75 percent knockout rate, with seven of his last nine triumphs
coming by strikes.
UFC 258 will still go down on Feb. 13 at the UFC Apex in Las Vegas,
with a welterweight headliner for the belt between Kamaru
Usman and Gilbert
Burns. Potentially elevating to the co-main spot is a
strawweight battle between Maycee
Barber and Alexa
Grasso, while Kelvin
Gastelum vs. Ian
Heinisch at middleweight and Pedro
Munhoz vs. Jimmie
Rivera at bantamweight are also options.
