Brock Lesnar, the Ultimate Fighting Championship’s massive heavyweight titleholder, was forced to withdraw Monday from his highly anticipated Nov. 21 title defense in Las Vegas against Shane Carwin.
UFC president Dana White confirmed the news to Yahoo! Sports. White said Lesnar has been ill for more than three-and-a-half weeks and unable to train. With the bout at UFC 106 less than a month away, Lesnar was forced to postpone the title defense.
“He said he’s never been this sick in his life,” White said. “He said it’s been going on for a long time and he just hasn’t been able to shake it.”
White said he is not sure when the fight will be rescheduled or if Carwin will still fight on the card.
Yep, that’s definitely unexpected and equally disappointing, especially for Shane Carwin who has been training his butt off for the potentially life-changing opportunity. In fact, he told Iole his “heart sank” when he heard the news. Hopefully, the UFC will just reschedule the fight — UFC 108 on 1/2 still needs a strong headliner — instead of finding a replacement. Considering where Tito and Forrest are at in their careers, Ortiz-Griffin is a pretty weak headliner by itself, but I’m sure the UFC can find a way to make it work.
Update: According to Shane Carwin on Twitter, the fight will be moved to UFC 108. It also sounds like Brock had the swine flu, though Dana White thought it was something else.
I just heard from Jason [Carwin's manager]. Looks like it is posponed till Jan 2. I had h1ni myself and I understand how devastaing it can be.
Update 2: Tito Ortiz vs. Forrest Griffin 2 is now the official headliner for UFC 106. The UFC hopes to reschedule Lesnar-Carwin for “early 2010,” which likely means UFC 108 based on what Shane said.
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scared bitch
My thoughts exactly…I hope they don’t move the Anderson-Belfort fight now
I’m sure we’ll hear Anderson’s elbow is good to go in the next few days. Fighting on a Brock card is a big payday for him. I think they’ll keep it there.
Well, I already had planed on going to 108, so here’s to it.
If this happens, 108 will be a huge card. Lesnar-Carwin, A. Silva-Vitor, T. Silva-Evans, and Gonzaga-dos Santos? Huge. It would be awesome as a year opener. 108 might make up for what happened Saturday. Hell, the only thing that would make it better is if they threw in the Machida-Shogun rematch. Three weightclass belts on the line would be monstrous.
Damm swine flu, damm you !!!!!
The Tito-Forrest Rematch is a great fight, if it resembles the first one.
UFC 106:Machida vs Shogun 2! Perfect solution, one month away, let’em heal up and come with teh same game plan, determine the true winner. Why should either get three or more months to make adjustments considering the outcome of the first fight.