Next Saturday afternoon UFC 294 takes place in Abu Dhabi. In what originally was a stacked card it has now taken two possibly major hits.
Charles Olivera had to pull out of the main event with Makhachev due to a bad cut on his eyebrow. So now on ten days notice Alex Volkanovski will step in to take on Makhachev for the second time. Granted that is still going to be a great fight but I know I was really looking forward to Olivera and Makhachev going at it.
And now that might not be the only fight that gets changed. There is a chance that Paulo Costa and Khamzat Chimaev may get called off.
Who gets surgery 5 weeks before a fight?!?! Like what are we doing Paulo, clearly not the smartest idea. I also wouldn’t be surprised if this was his way of backing out so he doesn’t have to face that absolute monster Chimaev.
Nothing has been confirmed yet about the fight changing or being cancelled and according to Costa himself he’s planning on fighting.
I don’t know whats happening and I’m not sure anybody does just yet but it always sucks when changes this close to the card happen. Granted there are times where it makes the card even better and that could be the case here. But here’s an accurate gif to describe what feels like is happening.
We’ll see if we get anything else happen as were still nine days out from fight day. Fingers crossed Olivera is the only one to pull out and the rest of the card goes off without a hitch.
PS: We did get some good news on the UFC front…
The King is back baby!!!! Now, maybe we’ll finally get a date for McGregor/Chandler to go at it but probably not.
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-Walsh