It appears that the Ultimate Fighting Championship in June is not going according to plan.
In the biggest setback for the promotion, Conor McGregor officially withdrew from his UFC 303 main event bout against Michael Chandler last week due to injury. The former two-division champion is UFC’s biggest star but has not competed in nearly three years since breaking his leg in July 2021. McGregor vowed to return soon in a statement on social media, but the exact nature of the injury and the timeline for his recovery are unclear.
After a busy few weeks, UFC CEO Dana White would not say when McGregor might return to action.
“It’s a business. It is what it is,” White told the Sports Business Journal. “I’m not going to talk about it anymore until he’s recovered and feeling good, and then we’ll see what happens and what we can do.”
After McGregor’s withdrawal, the promotion quickly reversed course and hastily scheduled a light heavyweight championship rematch between Alex Pereira and Jiri Prochazka as the main event of UFC 303. A featherweight bout between Brian Ortega and Diego Lopez was also added to the card.
Meanwhile, UFC’s debut event in Saudi Arabia lost half its attention last week when Khamzat Chimaev pulled out of his middleweight bout with Robert Whittaker due to serious illness. UFC has once again salvaged the headline spot by lining up Ikram Aliskerov to face Whittaker on Saturday.
All things considered, White is happy with how things worked out given the unfavorable circumstances.
“It was an interesting situation because we had to move the main event in Saudi Arabia to next weekend, you know what that means?” White said. “It’s still a few days away, so I’m not sure if I can put this guy in the mix. [Ikram
Aliskerov] He is a 15-1 Muslim whose only loss came to Khamzat Chimaev and everyone in the division except Robert Whittaker has refused to fight him. [is a good result]… I am very satisfied [with
the quality of the replacement fights]. ”
