After weeks of reports and rumors, UFC President Dana White has officially confirmed that Conor McGregor is out of his highly anticipated return at UFC 303. The former two-division champion was scheduled to take on Michael Chandler in a five-round main event at the welterweight division in a fight billed as the greatest return in combat sports history.
While fans won’t witness McGregor’s return at UFC 303, there are a row of exciting match-ups announced by Dana White to make up for the initial main event.
UFC 303 has a new main and co-main event
Soon after the official confirmation, UFC announced the new main event for UFC 303, featuring LHW champion Alex Pereira sharing the Octagon again against Jiri Prochazka. The duo shared the cage in November last year at UFC 295 where Poatan stopped Prochazka in the second round to become the light-heavyweight champion.
Pereira would go to defend his gold against Jamahal Hill at UFC 300, while Prochazka will step inside the Octagon on the back of a stoppage win over Aleksandr Rakic.
UFC 303 has also found itself a new co-main event as Brian Ortega will return to the Octagon to take on the surging Diego Lopes in what looks like a potential #1 contender’s fight for Ilia Topuria‘s featherweight gold.
Lopes was last seen in action against Sodiq Yusuff back at UFC 300, a fight he won via TKO in the first round. As for Ortega, T-City submitted Yair Rodriguez in his last fight.
Initially scheduled to take on Jamahal Hill, Carlos Ulberg will now face the UFC veteran Anthony Smith on the main card. Hill pulled out of the fight due to a knee injury, but it won’t be wrong to say that Hill probably did not want to fight on a card headlined by his former foe Alex Pereira.
Moreover, with Conor McGregor pulling out of the fight and UFC deciding on a new co-main event, Jamahal Hill, who was willing to take on #11 ranked Ulberg, may have made the right choice of pulling out of UFC 303.
What do you make of the recent developments? Do let us know in the comments section.