Rockhold injured, out of fight with Jacare at UFC Fight Night 101

The extremely well-connected Ariel Helwani is reporting for MMA Fighting that Luke Rockhold has suffered a knee injury and is out his fight with Ronaldo ‘Jacare’ Souza at UFC Fight Night 101 on November 26, in Melbourne, Australia.

Rockhold is ranked the #1 contender in the division, and Jacare #3. #2 Chris Weidman fights #4 Yoel Romero at UFC 205 on November 12. It was believed that whoever won the top contender fight most compellingly was in line for a shot at middleweight champion Michael Bisping. That plan is obviously now off.

Helwani reports the UFC has not determined who Jacare will fight next, but it does not appear it will happen in Melbourne. Jacare’s manager Gilberto Faria told Helwani their sole interest now was in fighting Bisping, but that he was uncertain if it would happen.

“Michael Bisping is running from Jacare. He is so scared of him,” said Faria. “He’d rather fight someone like Dominick Cruz, who I would put my money on, by the way.”

The injury continues a long and unfortunate trend of main event fights being canceled. 2014 was notorious for main event changes with seven of 13 planned PPVs seeing fighters at the top of the card notably switched; UFC 176 was simply canceled.

It has been worse since, with twelve of the 19 PPVs in 2015 and the first half of 2016 seeing changes. However, the UFC instituted changes in 2015, including keeping name fighters in reserve, and “double stacking” events with a big co-main.

However, these new processes may not have filtered down to the non-PPV shows. The UFN 101 is co-main is Robert Whittaker vs. Derek Brunson, which is an amazing fight for the hardcore fanbase, but is not likely a needle mover.