UFC on ESPN+ 23 momentarily lost its main event matchup when Brian Ortega was forced out of his fight because of a torn ACL.
He was originally scheduled to take on Chan Sung Jung next week in the Dec. 21 headliner, but it didn’t take long for the UFC to find an answer.
Enter former UFC lightweight champion Frankie Edgar, who will step in to save the day. Currently slated to still make his bantamweight debut vs. Cory Sandhagen on Jan. 25 at UFC Raleigh, Edgar will be squeezing in one more fight before the end of the year to the chagrin of Sandhagen.
“The Korean Zombie” will still get to make the walk on home soil, as he looks to continue his climb back towards featherweight title contention. The two originally were scheduled to face off in 2018 in Denver before an injury forced Edgar out of the bout.
Edgar was replaced by Yair Rodriguez, and in an unfortunate outcome for Jung, he suffered the “Knockout of the Year” in the final second of a fight that he was winning on the judges’ scorecards. “The Korean Zombie” did, however, rebound with a first-round finish of Renato Moicano in June.
In advance of UFC Busan, the promotion has released a new official poster. You can check it out below (via Twitter):
The new #UFCBusan main event has a new poster! Tickets on sale now: https://t.co/Cnm5mnonnF
pic.twitter.com/s5pPzx0ywq
— UFC_Asia (@UFC_Asia) December 10, 2019
The UFC on ESPN+ 23 lineup includes:
MAIN CARD (ESPN+, 5 a.m. ET)
- Frankie Edgar vs. Chan Sung Jung
- Volkan Oezdemir vs. Aleksandar Rakic
- Dooho Choi vs. Charles Jourdain
- Da Un Jung vs. Mike Rodriguez
- Marc-Andre Barriault vs. Jun Yong Park
- Kyung Ho Kang vs. Liu Pingyuan
PRELIMINARY CARD (ESPN, 2 a.m. ET)
- Tanner Boser vs. Ciryl Gane
- Suman Mokhtarian vs. Seungwoo Choi
- Dong Hyun Ma vs. Omar Morales
- Alexandre Pantoja vs. Matt Schnell
- Raoni Barcelos vs. Said Nurmagomedov
- Amanda Lemos vs. Veronica Macedo
- Heili Alateng vs. Ryan Benoit
- Sabina Mazo vs. opponent TBA
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Check out new UFC Busan poster with Frankie Edgar vs. 'The Korean Zombie'