Yoshihiro Akiyama has withdrawn from next Saturday’s UFC 128 event following the disaster in his native Japan and fellow middleweight Dan Miller has stepped up to take his place and meet Nate Marquardt on the pay-per-view main card on March 19 in Newark, New Jersey.
“Yoshihiro Akiyama will not be able to participate at UFC 128 due to the tragedy in Japan,” UFC President Dana White announced on UFC.com.
“New Jersey native Dan Miller proves once again that he will fight anyone, anywhere, any time by agreeing to step up from the prelims to face Nate Marquardt,” added White. “Marquardt has long been a top ten ranked middleweight and Miller jumped at the opportunity to face him.”
Miller (13-4) was slated to face Nick Catone on the UFC 128 prelims after rebounding from a three-fight losing skid with back-to-back wins, while Marquardt (30-10-2) missed out on another title shot with a loss to Yushin Okami in November.
The UFC 128 fight card is headlined by light heavyweight champ Mauricio “Shogun” Rua vs. Jon Jones.
For complete UFC 128 coverage and UFC 128 results stay tuned to MMAFrenzy.com.
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*Marquardt (SPELLCHECK)
It’s really hard to truly grasp the far-reaching effects of the disaster in Japan… My thoughts and prayers go out to the victims and anyone else even remotely touched by this tragedy. I hope we’ll see Sexyama back in action sometime soon. I wonder how many other Japanese fighters will have to pull out of their fights because of this.
Yeah, this is a tragic situation, I hope his family is all safe and my thoughts and prayers go out to everyone, as you say, even remotely affected by this. At the very least thankfully this isn’t like Haiti where they were a poor nation, Japan has a lot more resources and money to help their people.
Horrific situation for Akiyama, golden opportunity for Miller.
I guess thats just how life goes sometimes…
Come on Dana, make sure he’s taken care of and please give him a fight that will take his mind off of all the pain and makes the fans happy