This year is off to a crazy start. We just lost Robert Whittaker’s fight with Luke Rockhold due to an injury. Before that, Zak Cummings had to pull out of his fight with Thiago Alves. Now another big scrap has just been struck down. As we all know, the UFC scales remain undefeated. Uriah Hall failed to weigh in early this morning for his fight with legend Vitor Belfort. As a result, the UFC has pulled the co-main event from the card this Sunday and as of right now there are no news as to what will be bumped up into that slot.
UFC has made it official. Uriah Hall vs. Vitor Belfort is officially off #UFCSTL. Belfort’s retirement fight will have to wait.
— Mike Bohn (@MikeBohnMMA) January 13, 2018
Update on Uriah Hall: according to sources, he was on weight and headed to the weigh-ins this AM. That’s when he feinted. Looked scary, I’m told. Taken to the hospital. He’s feeling better and awake. Doctors are doing tests.
— Ariel Helwani (@arielhelwani) January 13, 2018
As a health update, I’m told Uriah Hall is in stable condition and now sleeping. Kidney issues seem to be to blame, but he’s doing better now.
advertisement – continue reading below— John Morgan (@MMAjunkieJohn) January 13, 2018
“This is my retirement fight. After that I’m going to put my body to rest. This is it. Breaking news. I think I did more than enough. Just to think back, sometimes I flashback just like Matt [Serra] said, and I’m like, ‘Wow, I’m still doing this, wow man, this is crazy.’ I’m very thankful, but I think my body need to rest. I have other things, I have a business of my own, I developed have a system, I developed a group class training system that we’re going to franchise. I just want to leave to help the sport in a way, work with the sport and help and do other things. We got to know the time to start and I think we need to know the time to end and it’s about time.” — Vitor Belfort speaking to the UFC Unfiltered podcast via MMA NYTT.
Earlier this week, Vitor Belfort announced that this fight at UFC Missouri was going to be the very last fight of his career that has spanned back to 1996. There may be a silver lining to all this though. Just like Whittaker’s injury gave way to Rockhold fighting Yoel Romero, Belfort being freed up may result in Michael Bisping getting him for a big retirement fight in March for the London card.
This article first appeared on BJPenn.com on 1/13/2018.