Due to an illness suffered by Carlos Candelario, his bout with Tatsuro Taira has been pulled from today’s UFC Vegas 53 card, per UFC officials. The opening fight fell off the card just hours before the event was to kick off.
In a brief statement on their official website, the promotion wrote that “Due to illness with Carlos Candelario, his flyweight bout against Tatsuro Taira has been rescheduled for UFC FIGHT NIGHT: BLACHOWICZ vs. RAKIC on May 14.”
As noted, the bout has been moved to the May 14 UFC event headlined by a light heavyweight bout between Jan Blachowicz and Aleksandar Rakic.
Candelario (8-1) was set to make his official UFC debut after going 1-1 on Dana White’s Contender series.
Taira (10-0) was looking to remain undefeated while also making his UFC debut, after a long career in the Shooto promotion in Japan and most recently at Vale Tudo Japan.
UFC Vegas 53 will continue with 11 bouts on the card.
- Rob Font vs. Marlon Vera
- Andrei Arlovski vs. Jake Collier
- Andre Fili vs. Joanderson Brito
- Jared Gordon vs. Grant Dawson
- Darren Elkins vs. Tristan Connelly
- Krzysztof Jotko vs. Gerald Meerschaert
- Alexandr Romanov vs. Chase Sherman
- Daniel Lacerda vs. Francisco Figueiredo
- Gabe Green vs. Yohan Lainesse
- Natan Levy vs. Mike Breeden
- Gina Mazany vs. Shanna Young
