Outside Source
For the sake of transparency this was my
first weight cut since starting antidepressants due to the head
trauma I sustained in the Deron Winn fight. Needless to say it went
horribly wrong and my fight is off. I will figure this problem out
and hopefully be able to compete again. https://t.co/ZYro3waykE— éS (@EricSpicely)
July 31, 2020
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The last 12 hours have been wild for
Ultimate Fighting Championship ahead of its return to the UFC
Apex.
Late Thursday night,
MMA Junkie reported that Timur
Valiev was forced to pull out of his featherweight clash with
Jamall
Emmers (17-5) at
UFC Fight Night 173. His withdrawal – and the others that
followed — was confirmed by the
promotion on Friday, with visa issues the reason the Russian
could no longer compete. In his stead will be Vince
Cachero (7-2), and the two will be squaring off at
featherweight.
“Lucky” does not find himself as lucky, as he was looking to make
his UFC debut after a long stretch with
World Series of Fighting and then the
Professional Fighters League. The Russian wrestler has won his
last six, and avenged his only loss in that promotion by dominant
decision. It is unclear when Valiev will be able to make his
debut.
Legacy Fighting Alliance vet Cachero rebounded from a pair of
losses to knock out Marvin
Garcia in January. “The Anomaly” took seven of his nine career
fights under the LFA banner, and only four fighters – Bobby Lee,
Brandon
Royval, Damon
Jackson and Nate
Jennerman – have competed more times inside the LFA cage than
Hawaii’s Cachero. His bout with Garcia came at a 150-pound
catchweight after former opponent Isaiah
Batin-Gonzalez fell out of their contest.
Valiev was not the only fighter knocked out of his match on
Saturday. First to break this news on Friday morning was
MMA Junkie, who announced that Ray Borg would
no longer be competing at this event due to undisclosed reasons. It
was later noted that Borg’s withdrawal was related
to “bad luck,” but like Valiev, the promotion found a suitable
replacement for Joseph
Nathan Maness (11-1). This is now the ninth time Borg has
pulled out of a UFC fight, which ties him for the record for the
most all-time with Thiago
Alves.
Taking on Maness will be the fellow debutant and King of
the Cage mainstay Johnny
Munoz Jr. (10-0) in the featherweight division. Munoz’ entire
career has taken place on the KOTC roster, notching eight finishes
across his 10 career wins. “Kid Kvenbo” won the KOTC bantamweight
belt at KOTC: Golden Era in June after a
sea of controversy, and his last bout came in a 140-pound
catchweight. This will be Munoz’ first appearance in the 145-pound
division.
Finally, Eric
Spicely is out of his middleweight battle with Markus
Perez due to complications from his weight cut. Like the
previous two withdrawal stories,
MMA Junkie was the first outlet to release this information.
Spicely posted
the specifics of his situation, which came about due to new
antidepressants that he started taking after his match with
Deron
Winn. Spicely made it to the final bell against Winn, but took
enough head trauma in the fight that he needed to start taking
antidepressants, which Spicely claimed made his weight cut go
“horribly wrong.”
Stepping up on short notice against Perez is
Fury Fighting Championship vet Charlie
Ontiveros (11-6), and they should be competing at a catchweight
around 195 pounds. Ontiveros has won his last two by first-round
knockout, needing a combined 3:35 to dispatch Derrick
Ageday with a flying knee and Washington
Luiz in a one-punch knockout. Ontiveros is also part of one of
the more unusual MMA events the last several years, as he faced
Clovis
Hancock at LFA 26. In that bout, Hancock’s heart stopped for
several minutes, and he needed to be resuscitated in the cage.
Because of this incident, Ontiveros holds what may be a unique
victory in the sport by TKO (Heart Stopped). Hancock has gone on to
make a full recovery.
UFC Fight Night 173 goes down on Aug. 1 at the UFC Apex in Las
Vegas. Headlining the snakebitten card is a three-round
middleweight bout between Derek
Brunson and Edmen
Shahbazyan. Elevated to the co-main event is a women’s
flyweight tilt pitting Joanne
Calderwood against Jennifer
Maia.
This article first appeared at Recent News on Sherdog.com
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