UFC 130 Fight Card: Frankie Edgar, Gray Maynard Both Out Due To Injury

Absolutely devastating news delivered today by the UFC with regard to injury pullouts for their UFC 130 event later this month. The organization has announced both champion Frankie Edgar and challenger Gray Maynard are injured and their headlining rubber match originally scheduled to take place is now cancelled. The news comes courtesy UFC.com:

The highly-anticipated third bout between UFC lightweight champion Frankie Edgar and number one contender Gray Maynard will have to wait a little longer, as it was announced today that both fighters have suffered injuries in training camp that will take them out of the UFC 130 main event on May 28th.

Stepping up into the UFC 130 main event slot is the bout between former UFC light heavyweight champ Quinton "Rampage" Jackson and Matt "The Hammer" Hamill, and moving to the Pay-Per-View card will be the Thiago Alves vs. Rick Story welterweight showdown.

In Spike TV prelim action, Tim Boetsch's middleweight debut against Kendall Grove will join the bantamweight fight between Miguel Angel Torres and Demetrious Johnson.

Neither Maynard nor Edgar are pay-per-view stars, but the absence of this fight removes not only the headliner, it eliminates the only title fight on the card. Moreover, while their UFC 125 rematch did not achieve a high pay-per-view buyrate, the word of mouth factor about their bout was strong given the exceptional performances. There was some measure of palpable intrigue about their third fight.

UFC 130's fight card strength was its exhaustive line-up of very competitive fights with, Rampage or Frank Mir excluded, mid-tier stars. The absence of this contest undercuts the card's strength generally and hurts specifically given it's prestige and headliner status.