With just one week until the event, the UFC 311 lineup has taken a hit.
Light heavyweight veteran Johnny Walker has sustained a “bad injury” that will prevent him from meeting Bogdan Guskov on the Jan. 18 card at Intuit Dome in Inglewood, Calif. (ESPN+ pay-per-view, ESPNews, ESPN+)
The matchup was scheduled to serve as the featured preliminary contest on the UFC’s first numbered event of the year, but Walker (21-9 MMA, 7-6 UFC) said he could not proceed with stepping into the octagon after his injury, and offered an apology to Guskov (16-3 MMA, 2-1 UFC) after announcing his withdrawal on Saturday.
“I’ve been pulled out by a bad injury,” Walker said in a video on social media. “So I’m not going to be competing, and I’m devastated. A lot of hard work I put in over a few months of training a lot. We want to come back and do a show, but not this time. I wish Bogdan good luck. Hopefully he can find an opponent.”
It is unknown at this time if the organization will secure a replacement opponent to face Guskov on just seven days’ notice.
The latest UFC 311 lineup now includes:
MAIN CARD (Pay-per-view, 10 p.m. ET)
-
Islam Makhachev vs. Arman Tsarukyan – for lightweight title
-
Merab Dvalishvili vs. Umar Nurmagomedov – for bantamweight title
-
Jamahal Hill vs. Jiri Prochazka
-
Beneil Dariush vs. Renato Moicano
-
Kevin Holland vs. Reinier de Ridder
PRELIMINARY CARD (ESPNews/ESPN+, 8 p.m. ET)
-
Bogdan Guskov vs. opponent TBA
-
Raoni Barcelos vs. Payton Talbott
-
Jailton Almeida vs. Serghei Spivac
-
Sedriques Dumas vs. Zach Reese
PRELIMINARY CARD (ESPN+, 6 p.m. ET)
-
Grant Dawson vs. Diego Ferreira
-
Ailin Perez vs. Karol Rosa
-
Muin Gafurov vs. Rinya Nakamura
-
Bernardo Sopaj vs. Ricky Turcios
-
Clayton Carpenter vs. Tagir Ulanbekov
Related
UFC 311: Reinier de Ridder ‘coming in to wreck’ Kevin Holland in sophomore appearance
For more on the card, visit MMA Junkie’s event hub for UFC 311.
This article originally appeared on MMA Junkie: Johnny Walker out of UFC 311 vs. Bogdan Guskov with ‘bad injury’
