For the second time in the current ownership's history, the UFC has decided to cancel a pay-per-view event. On Tuesday, UFC CEO Lorenzo Fertitta said UFC 176, scheduled for Aug. 2 at the Staples Center in Los Angeles, has been canceled because of an injury to featherweight champion Jose Aldo.
UFC 151 was canceled in 2012 when Dan Henderson suffered an injury and was unable to fight light heavyweight champion Jon Jones. When no suitable replacement for Henderson could be found, the event was canceled.
Aldo suffered a neck injury during training on July 1 which Fertitta described Tuesday as "kind of like a stinger," that forced him to withdraw from the fight. UFC president Dana White said on Saturday he thought Aldo would be ready to return in 45 days, and Fertitta said because it was a short-term thing, the decision was made to cancel the Aug. 2 show.
The bout is not rescheduled as yet, however, because it is still not clear when Aldo will be ready, but mid-October seems like a good guess at this point, Fertitta said.
Other fighters who were scheduled to fight on the Los Angeles card will be rescheduled and added to other upcoming shows. The Aldo-Mendes bout, which is a rematch of UFC 142, will officially be added to the schedule when Aldo is healthy. Aldo defeated Mendes at UFC 142 on Jan. 14, 2012.
There will be no UFC 176, as a result. A rematch between champion T.J. Dillashaw and Renan Barao set for Aug. 30 at Sleep Train Arena in Sacramento, Calif., will continue to be known as UFC 177, Fertitta told Yahoo Sports.
"At the end of the day, this doesn't happen very often, but in pay-per-views, we want to maintain where we have a title on the line," Fertitta said. "Unless it's a special event, like an Anderson Silva or something like that, we want [to have a title fight headline] a pay-per-view, so we've decided to go ahead and postpone the event."
Another piece of news came out of the postponement. Fertitta said UFC officials had talked amongst each other about potentially putting Ronda Rousey in a title fight in place of Aldo-Mendes, though he said it never progressed as far as talking to Rousey or her team about it. Fertitta revealed that Rousey also broke her right hand in her successful title defense Saturday at Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas against Alexis Davis.
There was a bit of controversy after the fight when UFC announcer Joe Rogan asked Rousey in the cage if she'd be willing to fight Aug. 2. Rogan was prompted to ask that by someone in the satellite truck who was speaking in his ear. UFC president Dana White was angry at the producer for telling Rogan to ask the question and thus putting Rousey on the spot.
Rousey received nine stitches in her right hand when a cyst on a knuckle ruptured. She also said at the postfight news confernece that she needs minor surgery on her right knee.
Now, with the broken hand, it's clear she'll be out for a while. With no other championship fights able to be made on such short notice, UFC officials opted to scrap the event entirely.
"I think [Aldo-Mendes] will be in October, but we're not going to know probably for about two weeks what the status of Jose is," Fertitta said. "Basically, doctors told him no contact and no training for three weeks, and we're one week into that. We'll regroup in a couple of weeks and we'll have some news at that point."
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