The UFC‘s trip back to Atlantic City next month is going to need a new main event. The world’s premier MMA organization is set to return to Atlantic City on March 30th and they had a fun welterweight main event planned. Dana White had announced that Vicente Luque (22-9-1) would be taking on Sean Brady (16-1) in the headliner.
It was a huge fight for both men as they were looking to pickup a second straight win and get into the welterweight title picture. However, there was a problem right away with the announcement. While White announced it and the promotion posted an official graphic, the fight was never finalized completely.
Harry Mac on X first reported that the fight was in trouble when he revealed that the fight wasn’t even signed. Brady had been dealing with lingering injuries per MMA Junkie and while verbal agreements were in place, the hesitation was around signing due to the injuries that Brady had been dealing with. This week, it was confirmed by Mac that Brady was out of the UFC Atlantic City main event.
UFC Atlantic City
At this point, the UFC is said to be looking at a new potential main event. They do have an internal option with another big time fight already on the card. Erin Blanchfield (12-1) and Manon Fiorot (11-1) were scheduled to be the co-main event of the show.
That fight is going to be a title eliminator with the winner eventually taking on the winner of the trilogy bout between Alexa Grasso and Valentina Shevchenko whenever that fight takes place. It’s a huge fight with big implications, however, at this point it’s not clear if the UFC wants it to serve as the Fight Night main event.
Blanchfield has already posted online that she’d be happy to make the fight a five-round main event.
While it’s certainly a great fight, usually the promotion likes a little more pop with it’s headliners that are in front of a live crowd. My assumption is that they will work to make a new fan-favorite main event.
This could be in the form of a new fight or they could simply moves things around with all the APEX shows that they have planned around the same time.