The UFC lost its main event for this Saturday’s Fight Night card at the Apex.
ESPN reported on Monday night that headliner Kelvin Gastelum is off the card due to a mouth injury with the fighter posting a video of the injury he sustained.
Graphic imaging ⚠️‼️ pic.twitter.com/L8jhdRgV0F
— #OnAmission4Gold (@KelvinGastelum) January 10, 2023
Gastelum had been scheduled to fight Nassourdine Imavov (12-3) in the middleweight main event with Sean Strickland (25-5) stepping in on short notice to fight Imavov.
Due to the last-minute nature of the change, the new main event will be contested at 205 pounds over five rounds.
What is unique about the change is that Strickland will have the distinction of headlining back-to-back cards after losing by split decision to Jared Cannonier on December 17th.
Strickland is seeking his first win since February after losses to Alex Pereira and Cannonier last year.
The ESPN+ card will air this Saturday with the following lineup:
MAIN CARD (7 p.m. ET)
*Nassourdine Imavov vs. Sean Strickland
*Dan Ige vs. Damon Jackson
*Punahele Soriano vs. Roman Kopylov
*Raquel Pennington vs. Ketlen Vieira
*Raoni Barcelos vs. Umar Nurmagomedov
PRELIMINARY CARD (4 p.m.)
*Abdul Razak Alhassan vs. Claudio Ribeiro
*Nick Fiore vs. Mateusz Rebecki
*Mateus Mendonca vs. Javid Basharat
*Carlos Hernandez vs. Allan Nascimento
*Dan Argueta vs. Isaac Dulgarian
*Jimmy Flick vs. Charles Johnson
*Sijara Eubanks vs. Pricila Cachoeira
