Blood Diamond, a.k.a. Mike Mathetha, is out of his UFC 275 welterweight match-up with Orion Cosce.
A teammate of Israel Adesanya at City Kickboxing, Mathetha (3-1) was set to make his sophomore trip to the octagon in Singapore next month. However, an undisclosed injury has forced him from the bout.
BJPenn.com was first to report the news, which Cosce later confirmed on social media.
“Unfortunately the news is true that my fight has been cancelled for UFC 275. Gonna keep training and stay ready for the next opportunity. Hopefully we can get rebooked as soon as Mathetha is healthy or someone else,” wrote Cosce, adding “Trying to fight a couple times this summer. All good.”
Cosce (7-1) last fought in July last year, losing in his promotional debut against Phil Rowe. Orion and his brother Louis both fought their way into the UFC as part of Dana White’s Contender Series in 2020. After the Rowe fight, Orion was booked against Blood Diamond for a date in February, which also fell through. Cosce was pulled from the fight on short notice, and replaced by Jeremiah Wells.
UFC 275 is set for the Singapore Indoor Stadium in Kallang, Singapore on June 11, 2022. The event is headlined by a pair of title fights, with light heavyweight champ Glover Teixeira and women’s flyweight champ Valentina Shevchenko in action. The event currently shapes up as follows:
- Glover Teixeira (c) vs. Jiří Procházka – for the UFC light heavyweight championship
- Valentina Shevchenko (c) vs. Taila Santos – for the UFC women’s flyweight championship
- Zhang Weili vs. Joanna Jędrzejczyk
- Rogério Bontorin vs. Manel Kape
- Jack Della Maddalena vs. Ramazan Emeev
- Seung Woo Choi vs. Joshua Culibao
- Jake Matthews vs. André Fialho
- Jacob Malkoun vs. Brendan Allen
- Steve Garcia vs. Hayisaer Maheshate
- Kang Kyung-ho vs. Danaa Batgerel
- Liang Na vs. Silvana Gómez Juárez
- Ramona Pascual vs. Joselyne Edwards
