Whittaker Forced Out Of Cannonier Fight At UFC 248

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UFC 248 — scheduled to go down on March 7 inside T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada — just suffered a huge blow, as former Middleweight champion, Robert Whittaker, has been forced to bow out of his fight against Jared Cannonier.

That’s according to ESPN’s Ariel Helwani, who revealed that “The Reaper” pulled out of the pivotal 185-pound clash for “undisclosed personal reasons.”

Robert Whittaker is out his March 7 UFC 248 fight against Jared Cannonier due to undisclosed personal reasons, sources say. UFC efforting to keep Cannonier on the card but no opponent locked in yet, I’m told.

It’s a tough blow for Whittaker, who spent the majority of his title reign on the sidelines due to one injury after another. Robert’s last outing at UFC 243 saw him cough up his title to Israel Adesanya last October, snapping his nine fight win streak (see it).

The promotion is now looking for a replacement willing to step in to face “Killa Gorilla.” Thankfully, with two months out from the event, UFC officials have ample time to convince someone to step in and face the hard-hitting combatant.

We know a guy.

UFC 248 currently features a women’s Strawweight title fight between division queenpin, Weili Zhang, defending her strap against former champion, Joanna Jedrzejczyk. That said, Israel Adesanya recently stated that he would be headlining the event by defending his 185-pound title for the first time against Yoel Romero.