UFC was supposed to return this weekend with a stellar card, but all of that has fallen apart. While some people choose to try and step in to make the card work, ultimately the card was reduced a bunch of contenders and soon to be cut veterans. The first bout that was lost was the co-main event between contender heavyweights Ben Rothwell and Stipe Miocic.
The interesting story coming out of this is that Andrei Arlovski was originally offered the bout with Rothwell when Miocic was hurt, and while he took the fight at first, his management eventually convinced him to decline the bout. The only logical thing to do would be to match the two up at a later date, but now Miocic somehow got the fight with Arlovski at UFC 195 and Rothwell has not fight currently. For a fighter talking bad about the UFC and not getting attitude shot, it seems odd they would give him he fight over Rothwell.
The UFC’s luck was even worse with the recent withdraw of main event fighter Joe Duffy. He was supposed to take on Dustin Poirier in a matchup of surging contenders, but that fight cannot happen now due to a concussion during training for the Irish fighter. Norman Parke of the undercard offered to take the fight and so did others, but Poirier declined the fight saying he trained for someone else which was unfortunate that he will not get paid after training for so long.
Now, the fight card is set with a main event between two fighter that were not originally and barely on the main card. Still, it is on Fight Pass so it is not as big of a deal as people assume since it was not supposed to draw ratings to a FOX channel. Still, lets hope it is a not a sign of things to come for all the big cards planned soon.