The UFC pulled Mark Hunt from his scheduled Nov. 19 main event bout in Sydney, Australia against Marcin Tybura citing “medical concerns” and replaced him with former heavyweight champion Fabricio Werdum.
Hunt was not pleased when he heard the news and released a profanity-laced series of Instagram posts directed at UFC president Dana White Tuesday insisting he is healthy and has been cleared by doctors to fight.
Hunt, now 43 years old, wrote a piece for PlayersVoice in September titled “If I Die Fighting, That’s Fine” in which he details some of the physical hardships he’s dealing with after nearly two decades of fighting professionally.
“Sometimes I don’t sleep well,” he wrote. “You can hear me starting to stutter and slur my words. My memory is not that good anymore. I’ll forget something I did yesterday but I can remember the [expletive] I did years and years ago. That’s just the price I’ve paid—the price of being a fighter.”
Hunt has an open lawsuit accusing the UFC of fraud, racketeering and negligence, and he believes that’s the primary reason the UFC removed him from his matchup with Tybura rather than health concerns.
Werdum (22–7–1) is coming off a 65-second submission victory over short-notice opponent Walt Harris this past weekend at UFC 216.
Tybura (16–2) has had his hand raised in three straight contests and is coming off a unanimous decision win over Andrei Arlovski in June.
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