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By: Jamie Penick, MMATorch Editor-in-Chief
UFC lightweight Kenny Florian has suffered an injury in training and has been forced out of a headlining bout at UFC: Fight for the Troops 2, according to a report from MMAJunkie.com.
There is no word yet as to the nature of the injury, but it has forced him to withdraw from his planned headlining fight with Evan Dunham on the card. The Fight for the Troops 2 event will take place from Fort Hood in Texas on January 22, and will air live on Spike TV.
Florian was looking to bounce back from a decision loss to Gray Maynard in front of his hometown crowd at UFC 118. Heading into that fight, Florian had put together a two fight win streak after a loss to B.J. Penn for the UFC Lightweight Championship in August of 2009.
Dunham was also looking to bounce back from a decision loss of his own. At UFC 119 in Indianapolis, Dunham dropped a close split decision to Sean Sherk that many disagreed with, giving him the first loss of his career.
It's not known whether the UFC will push this bout back or search for a replacement for Dunham.
Penick's Analysis: This is certainly unwelcome news. This was going to be a very good fight in the lightweight division for free on Spike TV. Hopefully the UFC will find another bout to put on top of this card on Spike TV, and with the influx of WEC talent it may not be too hard. They could just end up shuffling one of the other cards to get a headliner, or they could put Dunham in there with another high end lightweight. We'll see which way they decide to go, but this is a highly unfortunate blow to this card.
[Kenny Florian art by Cory Gould (c) MMATorch.com]
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Jamie Penick, editor-in-chief
(mmatorcheditor@gmail.com)
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