...OH, ONE MORE THING - PLEASE BOOKMARK US & VISIT DAILY!
By: Jamie Penick, MMATorch Editor-in-Chief
Former UFC Heavyweight Champion Brock Lesnar is out of his UFC 131 main event fight with Junior Dos Santos, and the man he defeated at UFC 116 will take his place in the #1 contender's fight in Vancouver on June 11.
The UFC made an announcement of the change during a media conference call on Thursday.
Lesnar's diverticulitis has re-emerged, and after getting checked out at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn. this week he was forced to make the decision to pull out of the fight. Lesnar's training camp has been hampered by more symptoms, but he says it's not as severe as what hit him at the end of 2009.
The former champion spoke at length during the call on Thursday, and expressed regret that he had to pull out of the fight, but unfortunately he's dealing with a disease that doesn't really go away.
"First and foremost I want to thank the UFC, I want to thank Dana White and I want to apologize to Junior Dos Santos and Spike TV," Lesnar said. I dodged a bullet two years ago with not knowing what this was and avoiding the surgery, [but] diverticulitis is something that never goes away."
Lesnar has been able to manage the disease for the last year and a half since first being diagnosed by changing up his diet and doing what he was advised. When symptoms began popping up throughout the last three months, Lesnar went through the antibiotic regiments to take care of the infection, but it was keeping him out of the gym and not allowing him to train to his fullest capacity. Lesnar pointed to his inability to train to his fullest extent to prepare for Dos Santos in his need to pull out of the fight.
"It didn't allow me to train to my full capabilities," he said. "I was forced to go back to the doctor this week and make a decision... It's not as serious as last time, but it just didn't allow me to train the way I needed to train for a number one contender's fight... I wouldn't have been 100% on June 11 because I'm not there now. I had to make a decision this week to give the UFC enough time [to make a replacement]... It was a hard decision, I'm choked up about it."
Though he may be facing surgery at this point to take care of this illness, he made it clear that this doesn't mean he's done in the sport.
"I'll tell you one thing, I'm not retiring, this isn't the end of my fight career," he said. "I have strong faith that there's a solution to every problem, I just need to find a solution to this problem... I can't perceive this being a career-ending ordeal."
Lesnar hasn't weighed the pros and cons yet of whether he'll go under the knife for this issue, as he just met with doctors this week and has more follow ups to go through, but he says he's looking to figure out whatever will get him back into the cage.
"I have to follow up with my doctors and we need to weigh the pros and cons [of surgery]," Lesnar said. "They're waiting on a number of tests to come back so we haven't even talked about that yet. From here to June 11 I can't be ready for Junior Dos Santos, so that's the first thing I needed to address. I've got some more doctors appointments to follow up with, I don't know the risks [of surgery] but it's got to be better than what I've been dealing with for the last two years. I'm looking for the light at the end of the tunnel right now."
Lesnar expressed gratitude toward UFC President Dana White, who said his immediate concerns were all for Lesnar's health and not the event on June 11. For Lesnar, while he hated to pull out of the fight, his health is the biggest concern, and that was White's stance as well.
"Dana was first class on this thing," Lesnar said. "He's always been first class with the health and well-being of his fighters. Fighting is second to my health and that's the first thing that came out of his mouth and I greatly appreciate that."
UFC 131 will go forward with Shane Carwin and Junior Dos Santos in the night's main event, and the winner will take on UFC Heavyweight Champion Cain Velasquez this fall.
Penick's Analysis: This is the second major loss of a main event this week, and this is really unfortunate news for Lesnar. He sounded hopeful on the call that he'll figure out a way to get through this, and made it clear that he's not retiring, but this illness hitting him again is bad news. The worst part of this for the UFC is that all this time has been built up on the fight between Lesnar and JDS through the Ultimate Fighter, and now it's not happening. But Carwin will make for a very tough and deserving challenger for that spot himself, and it will still be a big heavyweight fight. This is a huge blow to the UFC in the short term, but the most important thing is that Lesnar gets himself taken care of. This is an awful loss, but his health is the most important thing, and I just hope he can this thing taken care of and get himself back into the cage.
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.