Mir injury forces postponement of UFC 98 main event

The biggest MMA fight on the immediate horizon is the UFC 98 heavyweight title unification bout between ‘Interim champ’ Frank Mir and ‘UFC heavyweight champ’ Brock Lesnar.  The matchup was scheduled for May 23^rd in Las Vegas, but will have to be postponed due to a minor knee injury suffered by Mir.  The fight will now take place at UFC 100 on July 11^th in Las Vegas.

So why hasn’t the promotion announced that the UFC 98 main event won’t take place as scheduled?  That’s a very good question, and as of Friday Dana White was denying that there is any issue with Mir making the May 23^rd fight suggesting that “if the fight wasn’t going to take place don’t you think I’d know about it?”.  Making the UFC’s silence as to Mir’s status more dubious is the fact that tickets for the event went on sale this Saturday, with no indication from the promotion that the main event would take place.  Most fans understand injuries and whatnot, but they likely won’t be too happy that they bought a ticket to an event with a Frank Mir vs. Brock Lesnar main event and end up with Matt Serra vs. Matt Hughes instead.

The UFC may have dodged a bullet in terms of the UFC 98 main event, as the working plan is for Rashad Evans to make a light heavyweight title defense against either Quinton ‘Rampage’ Jackson or Lyoto Machida.  Still, the fact that the UFC went ahead and announced the Lesnar/Mir main event and started selling tickets when they knew that the fight wouldn’t happen is a sleazy promotional tactic straight out of the dark ages of pro wrestling.

Initially, there was some suggestion that the UFC would pressure Mir into rushing his rehab and training in order to be ready for the May 23^rd fight.  Fortunately, the promotion did the right thing in this regard and Mir himself announced the postponement during the UFC 96 PPV event on Saturday night.  He indicated that his knee had ‘gone out’ during training a couple of weeks ago, and that he went ahead and had surgery ‘last Thursday’.  He’ll need four to six weeks of rehab before he can start training for the Lesnar fight.

The UFC also announced that Evans’s light heavyweight title defense would be determined by the outcome of the UFC 96 main event between Quinton ‘Rampage’ Jackson and Keith Jardine.  Jackson won the fight, which the UFC indicated would earn him the title shot.  The problem now becomes Jackson’s ability to get ready for a championship fight just 10 weeks away.  For him to have an eight week training camp, he’ll have to get back into gear within the next two weeks which is not much turnaround time.  It’ll also be Jackson’s third fight in less than six months, which is a punishing schedule against the high level of competition that he’s faced.