After earlier posts claiming that Ian Machado Garry might not be joining UFC 296 after his media day absence, UFC CEO Dana White confirmed that the fighter caught pneumonia will no longer be joining the event.
Garry was supposed to face Vicente Luque this Saturday for a welterweight fight, but White verified in his latest Instagram video that the fight of the two will no longer be happening as “The Future” had to withdraw due to pneumonia.
“I know it’s out there. There’s some speculation that Ian Garry and Luque is off,” White said. “It is true. It is. Ian Garry started with the flu. That turned into pneumonia. So that fight is off and is not happening. It is true.”
While White affirmed that the fight between the two is now “off,” the executive didn’t share any detail on whether the promotion is looking for a last-minute replacement who will face Luque, who expressed sympathy for Garry.
“First of all, I wish the best recovery. Speedy recovery for him, and the best for his family – and it’s really unfortunate,” Luque posted on Instagram. “I was so ready for this fight. I’ve had a great training camp. Anybody that sees me on social media sees a little bit of what I’ve been doing. They know how ready I am for this fight. Weight cut has been going so, so good – the easiest weight cut I’ve ever had in my career. I have all my team here supporting me. A lot of guys came out in this fight. A lot of people supported me to come watch the fight, as well, and unfortunately it’s not going to happen.
“It’s out of my control. Everything that I could do, everything that I have control of in my job and really put my heart into this, I did. I gave it my all. Unfortunately, we cannot really control everything. As I said, I wish the best. I wish recovery for Ian. Now it’s time for me to rest. I did have a hard training camp.”
With this, here is the updated lineup of the UFC 296 event:
MAIN CARD
- Welterweight Title: Champ Leon Edwards vs. Colby Covington
- Flyweight Title: Champ Alexandre Pantoja vs. Brandon Royval
- Shavkat Rakhmonov vs. Stephen Thompson
- Tony Ferguson vs. Paddy Pimblett
PRELIMINARY CARD
- Josh Emmett vs. Bryce Mitchell
- Irene Aldana vs. Karol Rosa
- Cody Garbrandt vs. Brian Kelleher
- Ariane Lipski vs. Casey O’Neill
EARLY PRELIMS
- Dustin Jacoby vs. Alonzo Menifield
- Cody Durden vs. Tagir Ulanbekov
- Lucas Almeida vs. Andre Fili
- Martin Buday vs. Shamil Gaziev
- Randy Brown vs. Muslim Salikhov
