The planned September 29th show was set to feature longtime lightweight champ Gilbert Melendez defending his belt for the seventh time against Pat Healy at the Power Balance Pavilion in Sacramento, California before it was announced yesterday that he had sustained a knee injury in training that would force his withdrawal from the card.
Without the headlining title bout, Showtime execs decided that it would not air Saturday’s scheduled event at all.
“When SHOWTIME informed us that it would not be airing the event, we made the difficult decision to cancel Saturday’s card in Sacramento,” STRIKEFORCE CEO Scott Coker said. “Without a television partner, we simply could not move forward with this event. We wish Gilbert a speedy recovery and will work diligently and quickly to reschedule the fighters affected by this news on upcoming cards.”
The show was originally planned to include names like Jorge Santiago, Josh Thompson, and Caros Fodor as well.
This cancellation marks the second big news story in as many weeks for the Zuffa-owned Strikeforce entity.
Last week it was announced that the planned heavyweight “superfight” between grand prix winner and Olympian Daniel Cormier and former UFC champ Frank Mir would also be called off due to another injury sustained by the UFC fighter in training.
No word yet on how that affects the rest of the planned November 3rd card but we should expect to hear some news soon.
Strikeforce and Showtime do have a television deal in place until 2014 so it will be interesting to see how this all plays out and what do to reorganize in the wake of the two consecutive main event cancellations.