Not one but two fighters have withdrawn from a single bout on next month’s UFC Denver card.
Welterweight Mike Malott had been expected to face Gilbert Urbina at the Fight Night event on July 13, 2024 at the Ball Arena in Denver, Co. However, news broke on Wednesday that Malott was out of the fight, after Urbina had already withdrawn from the match-up.
Sportsnet was first to report the news, with Malott later providing additional insight in a video post to Twitter/X.
“Last Friday I got a call from my manager saying that my opponent pulled out of the fight, and he said ‘the UFC is still looking to keep you on the card, it will be a few days before we know for sure but hopefully we hear something soon.’ That’s when I told him that ‘hey, about a week ago I sustained a quite serious injury in practice, and I’ve just been trying my best to find a way to train around it, even though it’s not going well,” Malott recalled.
“I had every intention of pulling through and going to this fight anyway. It was like ‘screw it, I’ve booked a fight, I’m getting back on the winning track, I don’t care.’ It is what it is, I’ve got to find a way to power through it, after I overcome this it will be just even sweeter.”
After opponent Urbina pulled out, however, Malott’s coaches set him down and advised that he shouldn’t be looking for a fight, given that the undisclosed injury “would have seriously affected my performance.”
With that in mind, Malott isn’t looking for a replacement, but plans to heal up, then either looks to rebook the Urbina fight in the fall, or find a new opponent if that doesn’t work out.
“I feel sharp, but trying to train through and around this has been extremely challenging. It’s heavily impeding my ability to train, it’s every session I’m having to deal with this and not being able to train even remotely the way I’d like to.”
Mike Malott had been looking to bounce back from the first loss of his UFC tenure, against Neil Magny at UFC 297, in the fight.
