Bellator featherweight champion Pat Curran was set to make his first title defense next Friday night, but he has fractured his orbital bone and has pulled out of his fight against Patricio “Pitbull” Freire.
The news of the injury was reported by Josh Gross of ESPN, which included quotes from Bellator Chairman and CEO Bjorn Rebney.
According to the ESPN report, the main event will now be the season six bantamweight tournament final as Luis Nogueira meets Marcos Galvao.
With the bantamweight final being the main event, the new co-main event will be the light heavyweight tournament final as Travis Wiuff takes on Attila Vegh.
Following the news being broke by Gross, Curran went to his Twitter page to tell his fans what happened.
It was my 2nd to last sparring session and I fractured my orbital… Sorry everyone….The fights off
#fb— Pat Curran (@PatCurranMMA) August 14, 2012
@molesymma doctors said no training/working out at all for 6 weeks— Pat Curran (@PatCurranMMA) August 14, 2012
With Curran being unable to train for the next six weeks, he can not get back into training until the end of September.
If he is able to recover in six weeks, it could be possible to have him fight at the end of the seventh season. However, Bellator could decide to save this fight until the beginning of 2013 when they move to Spike TV.