Ilir Latifi Injured; UFC Seeking Replacement for Glover Teixeira in Hamburg

I’ll be back soon again, my apologies to my fans, the UFC and Glover Teixeira pic.twitter.com/PddmHRTNN9

— Ilir Latifi (@Latifimma) July 6, 2018

The injury bug struck the Ultimate Fighting Championship for the third time this week, as an injured Ilir Latifi was forced out of his UFC Fight Night 134 co-main event bout against Glover Teixeira, just days after news broke of Volkan Oezdemir’s removal from the main event against Mauricio Rua.

No word yet on the nature of Latifi’s injury, but the UFC confirmed they are currently looking for a replacement to keep Teixeira on the card.

The UFC was able to keep “Shogun” in the main event by replacing Oezdemir with Anthony Smith, who is fresh off of a 53-second knockout over former divisional champion Rashad Evans last month. Oezdemir is currently dealing with visa issues, likely due to his ongoing assault case in Florida. With the event set in Hamburg, Germany, travel restrictions often preclude offenders from traveling abroad.

Latifi (14-5, 1 N/C) is riding a two-fight winning streak with victories over Ovince St. Preux and Tyson Pedro, while Teixeira (27-6) is coming off of a first round TKO over Misha Cirkunov.

To make matters worse, UFC featherweight champion Max Holloway was pulled from Saturday’s UFC 226 on Wednesday after concussion-like symptoms emerged following an open workout.