It currently isn’t known whether a new fight will be scheduled for UFC 310 in December following the cancellation of the original main event. Belal Muhammad was set to make the first defense of his welterweight title against the undefeated Shavkat Rakhmonov in Las Vegas.
With Muhammad withdrawing due to an injury, Rakhmonov is hoping to stay on the card in an interim title fight against the former champion, Kamaru Usman. There was also talk of whether the UFC would try to pull together a totally different main event but this doesn’t look to be an option following the update surrounding Alex Pereira.
The promotion does of course already have a title fight booked for the card with flyweight champion Alexandre Pantoja facing off with new arrival, Kai Asakura. The issue from the UFC’s perspective is likely that Asakura will be making his debut so will be a relatively unknown fighter to a lot of fans in the US and there’s a language barrier there also.
With Pantoja not being the kind of champion who is going to sell the fight all by himself, it seems unlikely that they will be elevated into the main event. In a recent interview with Shakiel Mahjouri, Pantoja said that he’s ready to be the headliner if that’s what the UFC wants.
He even jokingly remarked that he’s prepared to start calling out Asakura and going against who he is in order to start hyping up the card and generating headlines.
“I’m ready for that, I’m ready to make my trash talk with Asakura and say he come from Japan, he don’t know, whatever you know. Whatever I need to say to him to make this show like everybody enjoy, you know. But you know about me, I’m not that guy. I’m not going to say anything. I say with my fists in the Octagon. I talking about that before, I’m another part of the coin. You have UFC is entertainment, of course, but I’m the good fighter. I’m fighter and I go for that.”
