Robert Whittaker is out of his main event fight against Kelvin Gastelum just hours prior to the event start. ESPN.com’s Brett Okamoto was the first to report that Gastelum is out due to a hernia the middleweight champion complained of last night after the weigh-ins.
According to Dana White via Okamoto’s tweet, Whittaker had surgery today.
The main event will be Anderson Silva and Israel Adesanya in what will be a three-round main event.
The news is terrible for a PPV that was already suffering from the lack of noteworthy fights.
Payout Perspective:
Unfortunate news for Whittaker who was the centerpiece of this PPV and its still too soon to know what this injury may mean to his middleweight title. Also bad for Gastelum who had to travel all the way to Australia. How much will the PPV buy rate be impacted? It’s not clear considering Whittaker-Gastelum was not a marquee fight but it seems that the moniker of a “title fight” always gets some notoriety so one has to consider this impacting the buy rate.
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