Blood Diamond’s second UFC appearance will have to wait.
Diamond was set to return at UFC 275 on June 11 in Singapore against Orion Cosce but sources tell BJPENN.com that the Zimbabwean has been forced out of the scrap. It’s uncertain if the UFC will look to rebook the fight or find a replacement for Cosce. This was also the second time the fight has been booked as the two were supposed to meet at UFC 271, but it was Cosce that had to pull out due to an injury.
Blood Diamond (3-1) is a training partner of Israel Adesanya and made his UFC debut at UFC 271 back in February. Unfortunately for the 33-year-old, the fight did not go his way as he was submitted in the first round against Jeremiah Wells. Before turning to MMA, he was a decorated kickboxer.
Orion Cosce (7-1) lost his UFC debut as well, suffering a TKO loss to Phil Rowe last July. He earned his way into the UFC with a third-round TKO over Matt Dixon on the Contender Series where he was a sizeable underdog in the fight. Before getting the shot on the Contender Series he primarily fought in California on the regional scene.
UFC 275 goes down in Singapore and the main event of the card sees Glover Teixeira looking to defend his light heavyweight title against Jiri Prochazka. Valentina Shevchenko also defends her belt against Talia Santos.
With Blood Diamond vs. Orion Cosce being removed from the card, UFC 275 is as follows:
- Glover Teixeira vs. Jiri Prochazka
- Valentina Shevchenko vs. Talia Santos
- Weili Zhang vs. Joanna Jedrzjeczyk
- Rogerio Bontorin vs. Manel Kape
- Jack Della Maddalena vs. Ramazan Emeev
- Silvana Gomez Juarez vs. Na Liang
- Brendan Allen vs. Jacob Malkoun
- Joselyne Edwards vs. Ramona Pascual
- Orion Cosce vs. TBD
- Maheshate vs. Steve Garcia
- Seung Woo Choi vs. Joshua Culibao
- Kyung Ho Kang vs. Danaa Batgerel
- Jake Matthews vs. Andre Fialho