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By: Jamie Penick, MMATorch Editor-in-Chief
In what comes as a major blow to what was set to be one of the UFC's biggest ever pay-per-view events, UFC Heavyweight Champion Brock Lesnar has been forced to withdraw from a scheduled Title defense against Shane Carwin at UFC 106.
According to a report from Kevin Iole at Yahoo! Sports, UFC President Dana White said Lesnar has been sidelined from training for three and a half weeks with a major illness and had to withdraw from the bout on Monday with the event less than a month away.
White told Iole, "[Brock] said he's never been this sick in his life. He said it's been going on for a long time and he just hasn't been able to shake it."
At this point White hasn't decided if Carwin will still be on the card.
The November 21st event is set to take place from Las Vegas, NV, and would have marked a major drawing event with Lesnar on top along with a co-main event of Tito Ortiz vs. Forrest Griffin II.
Penick's Analysis: Well this sucks. Carwin would have been an extremely tough test for Lesnar, and with all of the trash talk between the two the heat for the fight was set to be tremendous. Now this pay-per-view, while still a very good card, has taken a major step down without that Title fight. If they want to keep Carwin on that card, he can earn his Title shot even further if they match him up with Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira. After Nogueira's win over Couture, if he can take out Carwin then he deserves a shot himself, so it might make for a perfect #1 contender fight between the two of them with Lesnar sidelined. We'll have to see what they come up with, but now they need a main event for this card on top of all the others they've got scheduled. Man, this sucks.
[Brock Lesnar art credit Cory Gould (c) MMATorch]
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Jamie Penick, editor-in-chief
(mmatorcheditor@gmail.com)
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