When physicians ruled featherweight champion Max Holloway unfit to fight, the Ultimate Fighting Championship lost its main event for Saturday’s UFC 223 at Barclays Center.
Holloway was scheduled to face off against Khabgomedov Nurnag for the UFC's lightweight championship but will now be replaced by Anthony Pettis, who was originally scheduled to take on Michael Chiesa in Saturday’s event.
After Holloway, who has a 19-3 record, agreed to the bout on six days’ notice, doctors ruled he couldn’t safely make the 155 weight limit and declared him medically unfit for the match. Nurmagomedov’s record is 25-0.
The UFC previously announced it had dropped three other fighters from the pay-per-view event: Chiesa and Ray Borg, for injuries they suffered at the hands of Conor McGregor, and Artem Lobov, for his role in the melee that caused the injures.
McGregor was charged with assault after an attack on a bus carrying cage fighters at the Barclay Center in New York City on Thursday. He turned himself in and was arrested on three counts of assault and one count of criminal mischief.
Confusing matters even more, Holloway was an eleventh-hour injury replacement for Tony Ferguson.
As freelance reporter Chamatkar Sandhu put it:
Everyone in the Holloway camp — including the champ — was disappointed.
“Max wants to keep pushing and is close but the doctors came up and just stopped it,” a Holloway spokesman told MMA Fighting. “Doctors stopped it not us. Max was going.”
Pettis isn’t likely to stir up the number of subscribers Holloway would have — he lost five of his last seven fights.
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