Dana White announced a change to the main event of UFC 196 with Stipe Miocic getting the title shot against Fabricio Werdum. It was announced that Cain Velasquez is out with a back injury and once again had to pull out of a scheduled fight.
Miocic gets a quick turnaround as he KO’d Andrei Arlovski earlier this month at UFC 195.
Cain Velasquez is out with a back injury. Stipe vs Werdum for the heavyweight championship February 6th. pic.twitter.com/vPRJYJvOjL
— Dana White (@danawhite) January 24, 2016
Interesting enough, White sent the above tweet out during the last drive for the New England Patriots in the AFC Championship game. As most know, White is a big Patriots fan. The tweet announcing the change occurred right before the 4th and 10 completion for 40 yards from Tom Brady to Rob Gronkowski.
Payout Perspective:
This fight should be a better battle but will it sell better than Werdum-Cain? The jury is still out on whether Cain can pull in a demo (notably, the Mexican fan base). The underlying issue, of course, is that Cain is beset by injury making his appearance in the octagon infrequent. At 33, Cain may be young for the Heavyweight division, but his body is not.
O oh hahahahaha…
Cain gaming the system imo!
BS,
How so? If he doesn’t fight he doesn’t get paid. Not sure how this is an advantage for him. I’m guessing it’s just regular old overtraining. Like we see constantly in MMA.
Miocic is going to win. He’s the best hw out there.
So he wont be in ufc 200? Hahaha….
@ Tops, Cain was scheduled for UFC 196, not 200. There’s no way Cain would have been scheduled to fight two close shows in a row with his history.
Diego, he has enough money to live on. He isn’t broke. He was destroyed by Wereum. Hoping Stipe beats Werdum woukd give Cain a much better match up to get his belt back. Losing a second time to Werdum is not something he wants to do. This is the guy who won the belt and pulled out of his first defense. Imo to give him time to monitize the belt before risking losing it.
It could be. I favor Werdum in a rematch with Cain because he dominated him so thoroughly. I favor Werdum agains Miocic as well.
Different matchup and a bad one for Werdum. Miocic has much better standup than Velasquez and I can’t imagine Miocic getting taken down by Werdum. I know Werdum pulled out, but I don’t see Werdum beating a guy like Miocic.