...OH, ONE MORE THING - PLEASE BOOKMARK US & VISIT DAILY!
By: Jamie Penick, MMATorch Editor-in-Chief
Renan Barao will not get a chance to take back the UFC Bantamweight Championship on Saturday night, as a bad weight cut forced UFC officials and his camp to remove him from tomorrow's UFC 177 event.
According to a report on ESPN's Sportscenter Friday afternoon, Joe Soto is now stepping in against T.J. Dillashaw, and will fight for the UFC Title in his organizational debut.
The former Bellator Featherweight Champ was supposed to fight on the undercard, and instead has been shifted into the opportunity of a lifetime on a day's notice.
UFC 177 is currently down to eight scheduled fights, as there's no word if Soto's originally scheduled opponent, Anthony Birchak, will remain on the card.
Penick's Analysis: This is just mind-blowingly awful for the UFC. Dillashaw-Barao II was barely a passable pay-per-view main event, and Dillashaw-Soto just doesn't make any sense on a day's notice. It's not fair to Dillashaw to have him defend the title against a new opponent on 24 hours notice who has literally nothing to lose. The pay-per-view was already going to bring among the worst buyrates of the last nine years for the UFC, and I'll be shocked if they get 100,000 people to purchase the show now.
DON'T GO YET... WE SUGGEST THESE MMATORCH ARTICLES, TOO!
Jamie Penick, editor-in-chief
(mmatorcheditor@gmail.com)
STAFF COLUMNISTS: Shawn Ennis - Jason Amadi
Frank Hyden - Rich Hansen
Chris Park - Matt Pelkey
Interested in joining MMATorch's writing team? Send idea for a theme to your column (for Specialist section) or area of interest (i.e. TV Reporter) along with a sample of writing to mmatorch@gmail.com.
