UFC star Sean Strickland has shown off his gruesome finger injury that forced him out of a scheduled fight against Jared Cannonier.
Strickland, 31, was booked to face fellow top-ranked middleweight contender Cannonier in the main event of a Fight Night card on October 15. Just two weeks after the fight was announced, Strickland has been forced to withdraw due to a nasty finger infection he suffered in training. Strickland said the infection came on quickly after he cut his finger on a sparring partner's tooth.
“I punched a dude in the face, right? It was consensual, but I hit his tooth and now my finger is god awful infected,” he said in an Instagram video. “So now I gotta go get this thing scrubbed out, get an antibiotic IV and we’ll be back to it on Monday.” Strickland's infection continued to get worse, so he took himself to the hospital where doctors said his finger would require surgery.
“I don’t know what the f*** happened,” he said. “Camp was going really f****ng good. I had a hard spar on Thursday. I woke up on Friday and was like, ‘Hey, you know what? My finger is a little sore’ and then throughout the day, I was like my finger is f***ed. So I went to the hospital and it turns out I have a really bad infection from a tooth. They’re going to cut me open and drain it out. I should’ve went to college you guys, I don’t f****ng know. I’m gonna be out for like three weeks though, so that’s f****ng life, right?”
UFC boss Dana White revealed Strickland was out of his fight against Cannonier because of the injury. A replacement opponent is not to be sought for Strickland and Cannonier has been pulled from the event entirely. "He's out," White said of Strickland. "We had matchmaking today and that was when I found out there was something wrong with him. ... I think we just scrapped the fight."
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Strickland was looking to get back in the winning column against Cannonier following his knockout loss against Alex Pereira at UFC 276 last month. Cannonier also fought on that card, being outpointed by 185lb champion Israel Adesanya in the main event. Strickland labelled Adesanya as "Peter Pan" for painting his nails before facing Cannonier and slammed the champion for making the fight "boring".
