Illness Forces Heath Herring Off UFC 99
An extended illness that has prevented him from training has forced heavyweight Heath Herring out of his UFC 99 co-headliner against Cain Velasquez, MMA Fanhouse reported on Tuesday.
The UFC is actively seeking a replacement for the bout, though, as Fanhouse’s Michael David Smith speculates, Mirko “Cro Cop” Filipovic, who yesterday announced he’d return to the Octagon at UFC 99 against Mustapha Al-Turk, could ultimately be selected to fill in Herring and provide some European star power at the top of the card, which has only sold 7,200 tickets for the 18,000 seat Lanxess Arena in Cologne, Germany.
UFC 99: The Comeback goes down on June 13th on pay-per-view and is headlined by Rich Franklin vs. Wanderlei Silva.
[Pictured: Heath Herring]
Tags: Cain Velasquez, Heath Herring, Mirko "Cro Cop" Filipovic
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I wonder how Cro Cop would do against Cain? I’d pick Cain in that one by a longshot but i’m sure there are Cro Cop fans that would argue.
Man i wanted to watch Herring fight. It’s a chance for Mirko Cro-cop and his lethal left kick to hand Cain Velasquez his first pro loss via knockout.
i think Velasquez is a good fighter, but lacks experience and is kind of short for a Heavyweight, he’s not that short, but when there’s guys like Lesnar and Kongo…
I’m sure Cro-cop will be the replacement because this card hasn’t sold too many tickets and he would problably bring in more people.
overall this is a decent card, i honestly expected this one to possibly sell out, but now that they have banned the kids under 18 it’s gonna be tough to sell more tickets.
Would make no sense having CroCop fill in and fight Velasquez, I believe Al-Turk has been given to Mirko to kick to death infront of fellow Europeans. Velasquez a lot of fans see as the future of the HW division and The Texas Crazyhorse would have been a great test at this stage in his career so it would be of no benefit seeing either CroCop beat and upset Velasquez this early or have Cain beat CroCop, a European, in his ‘comeback’ and in Europe. Id expect Neil Grove, the kid Stefan Struve or maybe even James ‘The Mega Punk’ Thompson brought to fill Heaths corner at UFC 99 seeing as the Europeans also, such a shame that a great fight has had to be stroke off
I suspect Grove is out with a knee injury the way he limped out of the Octagon after losing to Ceisnolevicz(sp?), Struve is slated to fight Denis Stojnic in a “loser gets a new gig” fight at a later date.
Any chance this card gets moved to Spike instead of PPV?
How much more bad news can we receive today! Who else is going to be injured.
sad
….this totally sucks….man injurys are really turning up alot lately for the ufc………i would rather not see cro cop vs cain….its to risky for both of them its a win win for both fighters but a lose lose situation for the ufc……..If mirko loses there goes a very marketable fighter who was making his come back to the ufc……but if cain loses then there goes the momentum for an undeafeted fighter who could be a potentiol champ one day!
Did my comment just echo?
junior dos santos would be an interesting stand in for heath.
What about Shane Carwin? When will we see him in action again? Guy is a stud!
He’s out with a broken face (well nose actually, I think).
pretty much facial surgery, it was a nose problem that required more than just work on the nose so he’ll be out awhile.
He’s still training, but I think mostly conditioning, no sparring and maybe light mat work.
If Cro-cop ends up being the replacement, he has a decent chance of catching valesquez with that left kick being that Valesquez is a short dude at Heavyweight.
Rsky, good choice, Junior Dos Santos would make a good fight with Valesquez.
Junior dos Santos is booked to fight Justin McCully in August and if he were to fight Velasquez next month he would have to recieve zero damage, which against Cain he would not be able to avoid, to be able to make it at UFC 102 only 2 month later
Interesting… the way Lesnar hit him I’d probably have an extended illness as well…
In all honesty I hate it for Herring, I always enjoy his fights and hope he gets back soon.
As far as Cro Cop versus Velasquez… I hope it’s not true. It’s a bad match up for Cro Cop to be reacquainted to the cage and Velasquez would be risking a lot every second he tries to stand and trade. Plus with the fight coming on short notice there’s a good chance it’d just become a take down and grind it out fight, since who really wants to risk catching that left kick to the head.
However there aren’t that many options out there. It won’t be Neil Grove considering he’s probably rehabbing that knee from it being shredded in Feb. James Thompson has lost 4 in a row including a loss to everyone’s favorite beard so he’s out and Struve is already signed on the card to face Denis Stojnic so it’s most likely to be Cro Cop-Velazquez unless of course Hardonk or Kongo are available(unlikely but I’m just thinking Euro fighter wise).
I forgot that the Stojnic v. Struve fight was actually on this card, when I commented before I was thinking it was for a later date, but yeah, it’s on this one, which makes sense since they’re both European.
is gonzaga fighting anybody cause that could be a good fight.
*Rumor
GG v Chris Tuchscherer @ UFC 102
Totally lost on why this is a big deal. Unless people really like, after a ton of hype, watching him lose over, and over, and over again.
Cheick Kongo is suppose to be the replacement if i’ve read around correctly. I think that the winner of this fight should (or will) fight Shane Carwin and the winner of that fights the winner of Alves vs GSP for a title shot.
I would love a super fight of carwin vs brock (though i want him to lose out the @ss against Mir).
Shane Carwin on the rise!
oops sorry i totally didnt mean to put GSP and Alves…i meant Brock vs Mir!!!
though the alves gsp fight will be good sorry for the typo