Knee injury pulls Griffin from Davis bout
In a year of events being cursed by injuries, it was only appropriate, perhaps, that the final Ultimate Fighting Championship card of 2012 suffer the same fate.
Former UFC champion Forrest Griffin was pulled from his match versus Phil Davis at UFC 155, scheduled for Dec. 29 in Las Vegas, after tearing a medial collateral ligament and straining an anterior cruciate ligament, according to UFC president Dana White.
“20 ccs of blood removed from his knee and the saga continues at the UFC!!” White wrote on his Twitter account.
The card, headlined by a heavyweight title fight between champion Junior dos Santos and Cain Velasquez, was originally expected to be among the best of the year. But injuries to Griffin, middleweight contender Chris Weidman and lightweight contender Gray Maynard have depleted the lineup.
It has been the most injury-plagued year in UFC’s existence. Fighters hurt or moved to different cards as a result of injuries includes middleweight champion Anderson Silva, Urijah Faber, bantamweight champ Dominick Cruz, Wanderlei Silva, Rich Franklin, Vitor Belfort, Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira, BJ Penn, Rory MacDonald, Mauricio Rua, light heavyweight Jon Jones, Quinton Jackson, Dan Henderson, Michael Bisping and featherweight champ Jose Aldo.
In other UFC news this week, Canadian Ivan Menjivar will fight Urijah Faber on Feb. 23 at UFC 157 in Anaheim, Calif.
The two met in 2006 at a TKO event in Laval, Que., with Faber winning after Menjivar was disquali- fied for an illegal kick to a downed opponent.
Faber went on to become WEC featherweight champion before dropping down to bantamweight.
Montreal’s Menjivar is coming off a submission win over Azamat Gashimov at UFC 154 in Montreal.
Also, Dutch heavyweight Stefan Struve will face off against Mark Hunt on a televised card March 3 at Tokyo’s Saitama Arena.
The 5-foot-10 Hunt will be giving up 14 inches and 14 years to Struve, who is 24.
The fight was originally scheduled for UFC 146 in May but Hunt was hurt in training.