mobanmarketAdditional notes added by Dave Meltzer
Daniel Cormier won’t be able to compete at UFC 206 next month.
Ariel Helwani of MMAFighting.com reported on Friday that Cormier is out of his scheduled fight against Anthony “Rumble” Johnson due to an injury. Cormier and Johnson were scheduled to main event the December 10th show at the Air Canada Centre in Toronto in a light heavyweight championship match.
Dave Meltzer also confirmed that Cormier is off of the show. Meltzer reports that Cormier has a partially torn adductor muscle with a mild inguinal hernia. That’s essentially the injury that Terry Funk underwent surgery for recently.
After a second opinion from a specialist, the injury was worse than what was originally diagnosed and Cormier is expected to need surgery for it.
Helwani reported that the UFC is looking for a new fight to headline the show and that the current plan is to keep Johnson on the card. The number two bout on the card is Anthony Pettis vs. Max Holloway, which is a key featherweight bout but not a PPV main event, plus a match strong on paper with Matt Brown vs. Donald Cerrone.
It’s a hard position to fill because the top light heavyweights in the promotion, Ryan Bader, who just fought on Saturday, Glover Teixeira, and Alexander Gustafsson (who has been battling injuries) are all people Johnson has knocked out in the first round.
This is the second fight that UFC 206 has lost recently with Rashad Evans not being given clearance to face Tim Kennedy on the show. Helwani mentions that the UFC is hoping to make Kennedy vs. Kelvin Gastelum for Toronto but nothing is yet official. Evans vs. Kennedy was also pulled off of the UFC 205 card earlier this month due to Evans not being granted a license by the New York State Athletic Commission because of a medical issue.