It’s been a bad week for the UFC.
After already having its UFC 130 main event cancelled, the company announced today that Brock Lesnar is pulling out of his UFC 131 main event fight with Junior dos Santos due to a second bout of diverticulitis, the same illness that shelved the former champion a few years ago.
MMAFighting.com’s Michael David Smith had all the info.
In a blockbuster announcement Thursday afternoon, UFC President Dana White revealed that Brock Lesnar is once again suffering from diverticulitis and will not be able to fight at UFC 131. Instead, the main event on that fight card will be Junior dos Santos vs. Shane Carwin.
“I want to thank the UFC, I want to thank Mr. White and I want to apologize to Junior dos Santos and Spike TV,” Lesnar said. “This is an unfortunate situation for me. I dodged a bullet about two years ago with diverticulitis, at that time not knowing what the problem was. … Diverticulitis is something that never goes away. It’s something I’ve dealt with since the first occurrence and I’ve been battling it.”
Lesnar said that he has been feeling sick for three months and has been on antibiotics, and that “It didn’t allow me to train to my full capabilities. I was forced to make a decision to go back to the doctor this week.” Lesnar said he spent 14 hours talking to doctors at the Mayo Clinic this week, and although he insisted that the illness won’t end his career and that he won’t retire from MMA, he said there’s simply no way he can fight as scheduled in June.
The loss of Lesnar will really hurt the PPV draw of UFC 131, as Lesnar’s last two fights brought in over 1 million buys for the company.
While the fight between dos Santos and Carwin is very intriguing, Lesnar is one of the UFC’s biggest stars. More importantly, it appears that this diverticulitis could be a problem all of Lesnar’s life and jeopardize his MMA career.
Well, these types of things like to happen in three’s, so if UFC 132 main eventers Urijah Faber and Dominick Cruz are smart, they will start wrapping themselves in bubble wrap now.
