Outside Source
On Thursday, perennial middleweight contender Vettori (19-10-1) posted on Instagram that he would no longer be competing at UFC Baku, also known as UFC Fight Night 280. The Italian suffered a rib injury that does not need surgery but will prohibit him from appearing on June 27. He was slated to face Ismail Naurdiev (25-8) at the National Gymnastics Arena in the capital city of Azerbaijan either as the main card opener or preliminary headliner.
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Vettori explained, “Unfortunately I’m here to tell you that a few days ago, I got hurt on my rib. I did an MRI and it came back today showing that the rib is broken, so I won’t be fighting June 27. I was really looking forward to this fight. I moved from Florida to California for this camp. I wanted to get back to my roots, train with Beneil [Dariush], train with Julian for my boxing, train with Chase for my conditioning.”
“The Italian Stallion” continued, “I was feeling good, but sometimes s–t happens and you can’t do [anything] about it. So yeah, now I’m going to focus on my recovery, hopefully it doesn’t take too long, 4-to-6 weeks [until] I’m good to train again. If they reschedule me with the same guy, great. If not, doesn’t matter. Anybody is good for me. For everybody that supported me, I’m thankful for that, and I promise you that I will be back.”
Still just 32 years of age—Vettori joined the UFC a decade ago—the formerly ranked middleweight finds himself on a career-long losing streak of four straight. This skid remains the lone time as a professional that Vettori has dropped consecutive bouts. With his last win, a decision over Roman Dolidze, coming in 2023, Vettori has gone on to lose four times on the scorecards to Jared Cannonier, Dolidze in their rematch, Brendan Allen and Brunno Ferreira. It is currently unclear if the UFC will book a new fight for Naurdiev, or preserve the pairing and reschedule it for a later date.
UFC Baku lineup:
Rafael Fiziev vs. Manuel Torres – lightweight
Abusupiyan Magomedov vs. Michal Oleksiejczuk – middleweight
Sharabutdin Magomedov vs. Michel Pereira – middleweight
Asu Almabayev vs. Charles Johnson – flyweight
Brunno Ferreira vs. Ikram Aliskerov – middleweight
Ismail Naurdiev vs. TBA – middleweight
Abdul-Rakhman Yakhyaev vs. Julius Walker – light heavyweight
Bekzat Almakhan vs. Jean Matsumoto – bantamweight
Nursulton Ruziboev vs. Andrey Pulyaev – middleweight
Daniil Donchenko vs. Andreas Gustafsson – welterweight
Nazim Sadykhov vs. Matheus Camilo – lightweight
Eric Nolan vs. Farman Hasanov – welterweight
This article first appeared at Recent News on Sherdog.com
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