Jose Aldo Injured, Out Of Featherweight TItle Fight At UFC 153
Posted by Joseph Lee on 09.11.2012
Who will face Frankie Edgar now?
MMA Junkie reports that featherweight champion Jose Aldo (21-1 MMA, 3-0 UFC) is now injured, which means that he will be unable to defend against Frankie Edgar (14-3-1 MMA, 9-3-1 UFC), which leaves two blank spots at the top of the card in Rio de Janeiro.
UFC President Dana White said on Twitter: "Main and co-main in the same day!! Another amazing day at the UFC. We have some work to do."
White had announced earlier in the day that Quinton "Rampage" Jackson was out of a fight with Glover Teixeira due to injury. It's unknown who his replacement will be. Aldo was set to face Erik Koch (13-1 MMA, 2-0 UFC) in the main event (which takes place at the HSBC Arena on October 13) but Koch was injured. Then new featherweight Edgar was selected to drop ten pounds and go after the title. Now Aldo is injured which means that Edgar's title fight is also on hold. It's unknown if Edgar will stay on the card or will wait for Aldo to recover.
White said today that he didn't know where Edgar would be on the card. At this point he could either fight someone else or get pulled. Edgar wanted to join Randy Couture and BJ Penn as the only men to hold UFC belts in two different weight classes.
Aldo has not had a fight since UFC 142, where he defeated Chad Mendes in the first round via KO, which also took place in Rio. He had successful defenses against Mendes, Kenny Florian and Mark Hominick and was 11-0 during his time working for Zuffa, including WEC.
After White told him several times to drop to 145, Edgar finally did it after a loss at UFC 150 to Benson Henderson for the lightweight title. He won the lightweight title in 2010 by defeating BJ Penn at UFC 112. He defended at UFC 118 then had a draw with Gray Maynard at UFC 125 before winning by KO against him in a rematch at UFC 136. He then lost to Benson Henderson at UFC 144 and then UFC 150 in Denver.
Another UFC show is now in danger after UFC 151 had to be scrapped entirely when Dan Henderson was injured and Jon Jones refused a replacement fight with Chael Sonnen.
