It appears that Ultimate Fighting Championship heavyweight
Ilir
Latifi’s ailment will keep him out action a bit longer than he
anticipated.
Hours before UFC on ESPN 33 was set to take place on March 26,
Latifi fell out of his match with Alexey
Oleynik (59-16-1) due to an illness unrelated to COVID-19
claimed by some to be a stomach bug. The promotion went ahead to
reschedule the pairing for two weeks later, and they were to square
off at
UFC 273 in Jacksonville, Fla., on April 9. Per the UFC on
Thursday, Latifi will not be competing on this card either, and in
his stead will be Jared
Vanderaa (12-7). Vanderaa has since confirmed his appearance at
the event on his Instagram page.
Oleynik will gunning for his 60th victory at UFC 273, all while
attempting to end the first three-fight skid in his illustrious
career. Oleynik has not taken home a win since snaring a split
decision over ex-champ Fabricio
Werdum in May 2020, with a trio of setbacks to Derrick
Lewis, Chris
Daukaus and Sergey
Spivak following that victory. As a professional, the Russian
sports a stellar finish rate of 92%, with a whopping 46 wins by
submission since making his debut in 1996.
Coming in about 15 years younger than his adversary and likely 20
pounds heavier will be Vanderaa, who steps up on short notice in
hopes of righting the ship on his end. Like Oleynik, Vanderaa finds
himself in a bit of a slump, with a knockout loss to Alexander
Romanov towards the end of 2021 and a decision defeat from
Andrei
Arlovski stringing together his own short losing streak. While
just two of 12 wins for “The Mountain” have needed to get the
judges involved, his stoppage rate trails Oleynik’s at 83%.
UFC 273 will be held in the Vystar Veterans Memorial Arena in
Jacksonville, Fla., on April 9. This tentpole card capped off by
two title fights will see its top billing a featherweight
championship affair between Alexander
Volkanovski and Chan Sung
Jung. The co-headliner draws a rematch between Aljamain
Sterling and Petr Yan,
which will serve as a bantamweight title unification battle. The
remainder of the six-fight main card includes a welterweight scrap
between Gilbert
Burns and Khamzat
Chimaev, a strawweight clash between Mackenzie
Dern and Tecia
Torres, the aforementioned Oleynik-Vanderaa matchup and an
opener consisting of Kelvin
Gastelum against late replacement Dricus Du
Plessis.