UFC 189 is tracking to be one of the biggest events in a long time for the UFC but could a last minute injury change that million PPV buys?
UFC 189 could potentially do over one million Pay Per View Buys according to UFC president Dana White but the card suffered a potentially disastrous injury today when Jose Aldo is reportedly suffered an injury in training to his ribs. That could still leave an interim belt on the line with any number of hungry contenders ready to set their hands on gold, but White told everyone to relax via Twitter but offered no clarification after that. If this all turns out to be smoke then we will make it to the UFC 189 fight date without incident, but it could be masking a horrible truth.
UFC 189 fight card suffers change up
This does not change the fact that UFC 189 did get a little bit of a change up on schedule today. John Hathaway was looking to rebound from his March 2014 knockout loss by taking on Gunnar Nelson who suffered the first loss of his 14 fight career at the hands of Rick Story. Unfortunately, the always hurt Hathaway had to step out of the fight due to injury. Replacing him is Brandon Thatch who moves up from the main card. Many will recognize Thatch as the fighter who main vented against Benson Henderson in his first fight at Welterweight. Henderson dominated that fight on his way to a submission victory over the much larger opponent. Both of these fighters had undefeated runs and are looking to get back on the winning streak which should make for an entertaining bout.
Thatch had to drop out of his fight against the veteran John Howard to take the fight against Nelson, but luckily another fighter was ready and willing to take his place. In Howard, you have a fighter in desperate need of a win after returning to the octagon and picking up two wins, he has lost three straight at 170. He faces none other than Cathal Pendred who has not gotten that much fan face in his UFC career so far despite winning four straight. Part of that may be due to many of those fights being boring decisions and close. Now, he has a chance to win favor with the UFC audience by taking this fight on short notice which always says a lot about the heart of a fighter.