UFC loses November clash of top middleweight contenders
The UFC has lost a main event as former UFC middleweight champion Luke Rockhold suffered a knee injury and has pulled out of his November 27th rematch against Jacare Souza in Melbourne, Australia.
Rockhold had injured his knee prior to his June title loss to Michael Bisping.
The co-main event of Robert Whittaker vs. Derek Brunson was promoted to main event.
The story by Ariel Helwani quoted Souza’s manager Gilbert Faria who said at this point, he would only be open to facing Bisping for the middleweight championship. What makes that notable is that Bisping was interested in fighting on the December 10th Toronto, Canada, PPV, although he was looking for a big money payday against either Georges St-Pierre or Nick Diaz.
Souza has won nine of his last ten fights since a 2011 loss to Rockhold where he also lost the Strikeforce middleweight title. His lone UFC loss was to Yoel Romero — a fight that many media and fans had Souza winning or, at worst, ending in a tie.
Chris Weidman and Romero will face each other at the upcoming UFC 205 megacard in NYC where it’s likely the winner wll get the next shot at Bisping.
Dave Meltzer is the founder and lead writer on the Wrestling Observer Newsletter, the weekly constant when it comes to news and reviews in pro wrestling and mixed martial arts for more than 40 years. Dave also co-hosts Wrestling Observer Radio with Bryan Alvarez and had had bylines for The National, Yahoo Sports, MMA Fighting and others.