Phil Hawes’ second UFC appearance has been put on hold after his middleweight bout against Saturday’s UFC’s Nassourdine Imavov was scratched onto ABC 1’s chart.
MMA Junkie confirmed the news after an initial report from RT Sport. The UFC’s first fight card of 2021 drops from 13 to 12 fights. No reason has been given for the fight’s cancellation.
Dana White’s graduate Hawes (9-2 MMA, 1-0 UFC) started his UFC career spectacularly with an 18-second knockout of Jacob Malkoun to earn a “Performance of the Night” bonus check at UFC 254 last October. .
He was all set to take on Russian-born, France-based Imavov (9-2 MMA, 1-0 UFC), who also made a winning start to his UFC career last year with a unanimous win over Jordan Williams at UFC on ESPN 16, also in October.
The pair were all set to showcase their skills in the recommended Abu Dhabi preliminary map position. But secret circumstances have now forced the game off the map.
UFC on ABC 1 takes place on Saturday at the Etihad Arena in Abu Dhabi. The main map airs on ABC and is streamed on ESPN + after prelims on ESPN +.
With the change, the revised lineup for UFC on ABC 1 includes:
MAIN MAP (ABC, ESPN +, 3:00 PM ET)
Max Holloway vs. Calvin Kattar Matt Brown vs. Carlos Condit Li Jingliang vs. Santiago Ponzinibbio Joaquin Buckley vs. Alessio Di Chirico Punahele Soriano vs. Dusko Todorovic
PROVISIONAL CARD (ESPN +, 12 p.m. ET)
Joselyne Edwards v Wu Yanan Omari Akhmedov v Tom Breese Carlos Felipe v Justin Tafa Mike Grundy v Nik Lentz Ramazan Emeev v David Zawada Vanessa Melo v Sarah Moras Jacob Kilburn v Austin Lingo Gaetano Pirrello v Ricky Simon