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
For more on the card, visit MMA Junkie’s event hub for UFC 311.
