November 25, 2009, at 6:00 pm
My god. This was ridiculous months ago. Now it’s just getting to the point where I don’t know if there is a healthy heavyweight left on the roster. From Cagewriter:
The hits keep coming for the UFC, Dana White and matchmaker Joe Silva. The fellas have to scrounge up a quality heavyweight to fight Junior Dos Santos Jan. 2 in Las Vegas at UFC 108. Sources with the UFC confirmed that Gabriel Gonzaga is off the card because of staph infection.
Gonzaga (15-4, 7-3 UFC) last fought Chris Tuchsherer at UFC 102 in August. He’s won 3-of-4 fights. Dos Santos, 25, is unbeaten in the UFC. The promotion will wait until after Thanksgiving to come up with a list of candidates to replace Gonzaga. It’s slim pickings at the top of the UFC heavyweight food chain right now. The most logical choice would be Cain Velasquez, who just lost his opportunity to fight on the card against Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira. Big Nog is also out with staph.
The reason why this really sucks for the UFC is what Steve mentioned in the last paragraph. The thing that makes the most sense is to have Dos Santos fight Cain Velasquez. However, think about exactly what that means: One of your two best heavyweight prospects is going to lose that fight and be forced to build himself back up before he gets anywhere near the winner of Lesnar-Carwin.
If this keeps up, the UFC is going to start being in serious danger of having plenty of cards in the new year without championship fights on them. Hell, they might not even be able to have any kind of name fight on them.
How far away are we from Kampmann-Condit II headlining a pay-per-view?
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