Former UFC middleweight champion Luke Rockhold was forced to withdraw from his UFC 268 clash with Sean Strickland.
Luke Rockhold was gearing up for his UFC return when an unfortunate injury ruled him out of his middleweight fight against Sean Strickland at UFC 268.
Announcing the shocking news on social media, Rockhold bared that a back injury will halt him from making his UFC comeback in November.
“There’s no easy way to really say it, but the fight is off in New York,” Rockhold said on his Instagram story. “I ended up herniating a disc in my back. L4, L5. The docs say it’s nothing I can play with. I need to do some treatment and recovery time.”
“Some things just aren’t meant to be,” he lamented. “New York, motherf**king New York. I’m sorry to the friends and the peeps and everyone, but we’ll be back. Until next time.”
Rockhold’s bout against Strickland was supposed to be his eleventh fight under the UFC banner and his first middleweight fight since 2018, having failed to win his light heavyweight debut in 2019.
The 36-year-old last fought at UFC 239 in July of 2019, where he suffered a humiliating knockout loss at the hands of the current light heavyweight champion, Jan Blachowicz.
During his prime years in the UFC, Rockhold made a name for himself for beating former light heavyweight champion Lyoto Machida and ultimately, for dethroning former middleweight champ Chris Weidman.
In his very first title defense, Rockhold got knocked out by his middleweight nemesis Michael Bisping.
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