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By: Jamie Penick, MMATorch Editor-in-Chief Matt Hamill has sustained a knee injury in training and has been forced to pull out of his scheduled bout at UFC 102 with Brandon Vera, according to multiple published reports today. Loretta Hunt at Sherdog.com has reported that in his place will be Ultimate Fighter season eight contestant Krzysztof Soszynski.
Hamill's trainer told MMAJunkie.com that the injury was a meniscus tear, saying "He's going for a scope tomorrow, and we'll be back to training after three or four weeks of rehab... It was something that just crept up on us and was getting worse and worse. It was really affecting his ability to go to the ground and was giving out on him..."
Soszynski comes into the bout for his third fight this year, having already bested Brian Stann and Andre Gusmao in impressive fashion on consecutive pay-per-view events at UFC 97 and UFC 98, respectively. He is undefeated in the Octagon since his time on the reality show, including a victory over Shane Primm in that season's live finale last December.
Vera's compiled a 2-1 record in the light heavyweight division since making the drop from heavyweight last summer against Reese Andy. He looked sluggish in that bout and had a less than inspiring performance against Keith Jardine in his one loss at 205 lbs., though he rebounded very well against Michael Patt at UFC 96 in March of this year, picking up a TKO victory in the second in an impressive performance.
UFC 102 is set to air live on pay-per-view on August 29th Portland, OR, headlined by a heavyweight bout between "The Natural" Randy Couture and Antonio Rodrigo "Minotauro" Nogueira.
Penick's Analysis: Losing Hamill is disappointing for this card, as I was really looking forward to this bout with Vera. Both looked very good at UFC 96, especially Vera who finally seemed to look comfortable in there at 205 after two less than desirable outings. That said, Soszynski is a great replacement who has been very entertaining to watch this year with his decisive victories over Stann and Gusmao. This will still be a good fight to open up the pay-per-view.
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Jamie Penick, editor-in-chief
(mmatorcheditor@gmail.com)
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