Injury puts Aldo’s bout with McGregor in jeopardy
UFC 189: Featherweight champ reportedly hurt his rib; losing headliner could be hard hit to pay-per-view card E. Spencer Kyte
The biggest fight of the year appears to be in jeopardy. Reports circulated Tuesday that featherweight champion Jose Aldo had suffered a rib injury in training, putting his highly anticipated bout with Conor McGregor at UFC 189 in jeopardy.
Let’s get one thing clear right off the bat: as of right now, Aldo is still facing McGregor and the UFC has yet to comment on the Brazilian’s injury status and the impending fight.
Dana White told everyone to relax via Twitter, but internally, the UFC president and the rest of the company’s brass have to be nervous that a grudge match they’ve been hyping since January could end up being rescheduled.
While losing fights to injuries is par for the course at this point, this is the one fight on the calendar that the UFC can’t afford to lose.
Despite there being a second championship bout on the card, UFC 189 has been built around the featherweight title fight between Aldo and McGregor, with copious amounts of time and money having already been put into promoting this contest.
As much as the show will go on and welterweight title combatants Robbie Lawler and Rory MacDonald are more than capable of handling the main event assignment if it comes to that, losing the heated featherweight championship headliner would be a massive blow to next month’s pay-per-view card at the MGM Grand Garden Arena.
While there have been plenty of fighters volunteering their services if a spot opposite McGregor becomes available, the more likely scenario is to postpone the fight and preserve the featherweight title fight between the reigning champion and the surging Irish challenger.
The UFC was faced with a similar situation when the light heavy weight championship bout between Jon Jones and Daniel Cormier was pushed from UFC 178 in September to UFC 182 in early January after ‘Bones’ suffered an injury late in his training camp.
As much ass eeing Mc Gregor share the cage with the likes of Frankie Edgar or Chad Mendes has a ton of appeal, there is no upside to hustling the Irish superstar into a short notice fight against anyone, let alone talented wrestlers and established featherweight standouts.
Aldo’s reported injury isn’t serious enough to warrant an interim title being created, so keeping McGregor on the card against someone like Edgar or Mendes (or even Dennis Bermudez or Jeremy Stephens, both of whom are scheduled to compete at UFC 189) just risks (a) the Irishman suffering a loss; or (b) getting injured, which would delay a potential date with Aldo even further.
Unfortunately, that means fight fans might just have to wait a couple of extra months before seeing these two featherweight rivals settle their differences in the Octagon.
Stay tuned to Keyboard Kimura (theprovince.com/mmablog) for further updates on this situation and all your UFC news.
E. Spencer Kyte is the author of Keyboard Kimura, the UFC blog of The Province, and co-host of the Keyboard Kimura Podcast. Follow him at twitter.com/spencerkyte.