Remember when we said that options were getting more and more limited for UFC 230’s headliner? Well, they just got even thinner.

One of the potential options for said Madison Square Garden headliner on November 3 was the heated welterweight matchup between the champion Tyron Woodley and the former interim champion, Colby “Chaos” Covington.

Unfortunately, that idea has now gone out the window as we have learned via ESPN that in Woodley’s most recent title defense against Darren Till at UFC 228 that he suffered a dislocated thumb along with three torn ligaments. Woodley will undergo surgery on October 10 that is expected to keep him out of action for 8-to-12 weeks.

“I dislocated my thumb in the [Till] fight and by doing that I tore three ligaments,” Woodley told ESPN, “They are doing a shoestring surgery to provide more stability for my hand and minimize the potential arthritis.”

Woodley’s fight with Till already acted as a return for him after being out a little over a year while he was recovering from shoulder surgery. That surgery was also the result of an injury sustained in his bout with Demian Maia at UFC 214.

It’s a little bit surprising to hear that Woodley was the one injured in his last fight as he was hit with one strike the whole fight. Meaning, he hurt himself by dealing out damage to Till over the course of the two rounds that the fight lasted.

It’s not a crazy amount of time that Woodley will be out for but it most certainly will keep him out until the next year. Which makes us now wonder what will be next for Covington in the meantime as he hasn’t fought since June when he defeated Rafael Dos Anjos.

This article first appeared on BJPenn.com on 9/21/2018