By MATT BOONE
MMANEWS.COM Staff Writer
According to a report on FightersOnlyMagazine.co.uk, Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira is out of his scheduled fight with Frank Mir at UFC 119 on September 25.
The fight, which was scheduled as the headline bout for the Indianapolis, Indiana-based event, is apparently off due to an injury sustained by Nogueira during training.
The Fighters Only Magazine report claims UFC has “a really big name opponent” secured as a replacement to fight Mir in the UFC 119 featured attraction.
Nogueira vs. Mir was a scheduled rematch of an initial meeting between the two highly ranked heavyweight contenders back in December of 2008. The fight took place at UFC 92 “The Ultimate 2008” and was the semi-main event of the show. Mir took the fight by knockout, to the disbelief of many who saw Nog powerbombed on his head by Bob Sapp, high-kicked by Mirko CroCop and pounded on by an in-his-prime Fedor Emelianenko for the full distance in multiple fights. The news came out after the loss to Mir that Nogueira had been suffering from staph infection, among other legitimate injuries that he chose not to speak of going into the fight.
Mir has never looked better than in the Nog fight. The win set Mir up for his next fight, the historical UFC 100 main event for the heavyweight title in a rematch with Brock Lesnar. That particular event, to this day, remains the most purchased UFC pay-per view event in company history. Unfortunately for Mir, it will be one remembered for the savage destruction laid down by Lesnar, as Mir dropped the one-sided contest by technical knockout in the second round.
Since the fight at UFC 100, Mir has compiled a 1-1 UFC record with an impressive submission victory over Cheick Kongo at UFC 107 in December of 2009 and an even more one-sided savage beatdown-style loss to Shane Carwin at UFC 111 back in March.
MMANEWS.COM has yet to be able to confirm the Nogueira injury/fight cancellation reports. We will be back with an update the moment confirmation becomes available, but until then this report should be taken strictly as a rumor.
