Nick Ring-Costa Philippou Canceled, Mark Bocek-Rafael dos Anjos Moved to UFC 154 PPV Bill

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UFC middleweight Nick Ring has taken ill and will be unable to compete at UFC 154 against Constantinos Philippou.

According to promotion’s official release, Ring became ill following yesterday’s weigh-ins, though no specifics were released on his condition. As a result of the short-notice cancellation, Philippou has also been pulled from the event, which takes place tonight at the Bell Centre in Montreal and is headlined by a welterweight title unification bout between returning champion Georges St. Pierre and interim belt holder Carlos Condit.

In light of Ring’s illness, the evening’s pay-per-view broadcast will now instead feature a lightweight confrontation between Mark Bocek and Rafael dos Anjos. Meanwhile, a preliminary card bout between Antonio Carvalho and Rodrigo Damm originally slated to stream on Facebook has been promoted to the FX undercard broadcast.

Ring, 33, kicked off his Octagon career with a pair of victories over Riki Fukuda and James Head last year, only to stumble against former light heavyweight Tim Boetsch at UFC 135. However, the Canadian rebounded from that defeat in his most recent outing, taking a unanimous decision from Court McGee four months ago at UFC 149.

Philippou also made his UFC foray last year, dropping a unanimous decision to Nick Catone at UFC 128. Since that defeat, the Cyprus native has won four straight, delivering a nasty knockout of the notoriously durable Jared Hamman in the process. Like Ring, Philippou last competed in July, when he took a unanimous verdict from Fukuda at UFC 148, despite suffering a serious accidental eye-poke.