Lorenzo Fertitta Aiming To Reschedule UFC 176 For October, Considering Interim Title If Aldo Can’t Go

It’s not often that the UFC decides to cancel a pay-per-view (PPV) card event once it’s been scheduled. In fact, it’s only happened once before, when a Dan Henderson knee injury incited a fallout that ultimately resulted in Jon Jones refusing to fight Chael Sonnen, hence the cancellation of UFC 151 in September 2012.

It happened again last night when the promotion decided to “postpone” August 2’s UFC 176 from the Staples Center in Los Angeles after featherweight champion Jose Aldo was forced out of his headlining rematch with Chad Mendes due to a neck injury. UFC President Dana White said that Aldo should be able to fight 45 days from the original date.

UFC co-owner Lorenzo Fertitta appeared on FOX Sports Live to discuss the tough decision they had to make, noting that UFC 176 could be re-scheduled for the fall:

“It was a very difficult decision to make, and part of the reason that we decided to postpone it is because Jose Aldo’s injury is a neck/shoulder injury, which, he said he’s not going to be able to train for only three weeks.

So it was a situation where certainly he wouldn’t be ready for August 2nd, but at the same time, he’s not going to be out for very long, so it’s going to allow us to essentially postpone this and reschedule this event for sometime in the early to mid-fall, probably in October. We just felt like that made the most sense.

In addition to that, obviously on pay-per-view events there’s typically a championship bout on the card, and quite frankly right now there’s nobody that could turn around quick enough to be able to fill the August 2nd slot.”

Makes sense, because even though women’s bantamweight champ Ronda Rousey was put on the spot to headline UFC 176 after she destroyed Alexis Davis at UFC 175, she broke her hand and needs minor knee surgery, so that wasn’t happening.

In addition, Fertitta said that if Aldo can’t fight by October or so, they could possibly create an interim title in which Mendes faces Frankie Edgar or Cub Swanson:

“We’ve got some other great contenders in Frankie Edgar and Cub Swanson that certainly could step up and vie for some type of an interim title. We’re going to know more in about two weeks. Aldo was told by his doctors not to do anything for three weeks. We’re about one week into that.

We’re going to regroup in two weeks, and if Aldo isn’t going to be ready to go by October, then we’re going to have to sit down and see if we can do an interim title. And if that’s the case, like I said before, the good thing is that we have a lot of really, really good contenders in that weight class that could challenge Chad Mendes for an interim title.”

It seems rather hasty for the UFC to create an interim belt if Aldo isn’t available just two months after his originally scheduled title defense. After all, UFC lightweight champion Anthony Pettis will have been out for over 16 months when he steps into the Octagon to face Gilbert Melendez for his very first title defense on January 3, 2015.

With the lightweight belt on hold for the past year, perhaps the promotion has learned from their mistakes, or perhaps they are playing favorites. Which one do you think it is?