A clash between Canadian Mike Malott and Gilbert Urbina has been pulled from the July 13 UFC Fight Night card in Denver due to injury, Sportsnet’s Aaron Bronsteter reported Wednesday.
After the report, Malott took to social media to say he got a call from his manager last Friday saying his opponent had pulled out and that the UFC was looking for another opponent.
At that time, he told his manager that he himself had suffered “a quite serious injury in practice.”
“Once my opponent pulled out and I didn’t have a fight, my coaches kind of had a talk with me and told me ‘Look you’re not in a spot where you should be looking for a fight. This is something that has dramatically impeded my preparation for the fight and likely would have seriously affected my performance,” the Canadian said.
Malott said he plans to try to either rebook the fight in the fall or look for another opponent.
Malott last appeared at January’s UFC 297 at Scotiabank Arena in Toronto, just under an hour from his hometown of Burlington, Ont.
The 32-year-old lost to Neil Magney in heartbreaking fashion after dominating most of the contest and even having the UFC welterweight division win leader locked in a guillotine choke.
Shrugging off the hold, Magney rebounded in the final round by landing 44 significant head strikes on Malott, a beating heavy enough to force the referee to call the fight 15 seconds before the final horn would have sounded in front of a sold-out crowd.
The headliner between flyweights Tracy Cortez and Rose Namajunas will be the main event at Ball Arena.