Velasquez Out, Miocic In Against Werdum For UFC Heavyweight Title On 2

Less than 24 hours after it was announced that heavyweight top contender Cain Velasquez was pulling out of the UFC 196 main event due to injury, MMAFighting.com's Guilherme Cruz revealed that heavyweight champion Fabricio Werdum is joining him. Werdum beat Velasquez a year ago to claim the title.

On less than two weeks' notice, Stipe Miocic agreed to take the heavyweight title fight. "I've been training without kicks for the last two weeks due to a fissure in my toe", Werdum said.

I went to a doctor and did some massage, but today during sparring, I felt a lot of pain and couldn't train well, so I chose to not fight, since I'm not 100 percent.

Last April, White blamed the "stone age" training philosophy at Velasquez's American Kickboxing Academy for his constant stints on the IR. AKA coach Javier Mendez took heed to White's criticism and promised to pay better attention to his fighters in order to cut down on injuries. I would still fight Cain because I was injured the last time, but I also hurt my back last Friday.

He admitted, via translation, "If Cain (remained in the) fight, I (would) fight because we have a history, and he had cancelled that fight twice previously".

Miocic just fought at UFC 195 on January 2 with the fight against Arlovski ending in the first round, so chances are he was still in good shape and healthy when the UFC gave him the call to offer the fight. My fans deserve to see me compete as close to 100 [percent] as possible.

Then boom! Velasquez pulls out of the bout, citing a back injury. I've always accepted all opponents that UFC gave me.

'I made this decision together with my team. "From one professional to another, I can tell you I was committed and looking forward to competing with you again", Velasquez wrote. If Cain was the opponent, I would go on. Regardless mark it in your diaries, the official new main event of UFC 196 is champion Fabricio Werdum vs. heavyweight contender Stipe Miocic.

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