More bad news in the world of MMA tonight as news breaks that Daniel Cormier is out of his upcoming UFC 197 light-heavyweight title bout with Jon Jones due to an injury. BjPenn.com broke the story and MMAFighting.com later confirmed it with sources, although the UFC are yet to make it official.
Over the last week, many thought that it would be Jon Jones who was forced to pull out of the fight after his latest indiscretion with the law but now, with those issues cleared up, it’s Cormier who needs replacing.
After beating Ryan Bader earlier in the year, Anthony Johnson seems the likely replacement – if they do decide to in fact replace Cormier rather than rescheduling the Jones match-up.
That match-up between Jones and Cormier was due to be a rematch of their UFC 182 meeting which saw Jones win a unanimous decision. In the aftermath of that fight Jones was stripped of his title and Cormier won the vacant strap which he was oddly going to defend against Jones in the New Yorker’s first fight back after more than a year out.
Thanks to the injury, though, that rematch will have to wait.