July 7’s UFC 226 pay-per-view lost its co-main event as featherweight champ Max Holloway has been taken off the card with “concussion-like symptoms.” That’s obviously a scary injury, scary enough for us to largely forget about the pain of losing a great fight like Max Holloway vs. Brian Ortega.
The news was announced by ESPN’s Ariel Helwani, who shared a statement from Holloway’s management.
Breaking: Max Holloway is out of UFC 226. Here is a statement from his management team, exclusive to ESPN. More coming shortly. pic.twitter.com/PO4Zm0DeBC
— Ariel Helwani (@arielhelwani) July 5, 2018
Here’s some of that footage his management mentioned with Holloway looking extremely tired and stumbling over his words.
https://twitter.com/JustBleedMMA/status/1014708930545504256
This is the second pull-out from Holloway in the past couple of months. He tried to step up to fight for the lightweight title on short notice at UFC 223, only to have the NYSAC pull him from the card due to a severe weight cut that had them worried about his health.
UFC 226 still has a pretty impressive fight at the top of the main card as light heavyweight champ Daniel Cormier moves up in weight to try and take the heavyweight belt off Stipe Miocic. We don’t doubt the UFC will try to pull a solid replacement fight out of thin air as they often do. Could Jose Aldo step up to face Brian Ortega? That would certainly take some of the sting off this latest last-minute fight cancellation, and it’s the kind of lemons to lemonade solution the UFC has managed in the past.
