MANILA, Philippines - Fil-Am Mark Muñoz’s bid to get in line for a crack at the UFC middleweight crown suffered a big blow after he sustained an elbow injury recently, forcing him to back out of his fight against top challenger Chael Sonnen.
Instead, Michael “The Count” Bisping will take on Sonnen, the No. 1 middleweight contender, in the Ultimate Fighting Championship on FOX 2 on Jan. 28, according to UFC president Dana White.
“For those that are wondering, injury on Friday sparring causing bone spurs to dislodge in my joint causing locking and pain,” Muñoz said on his Twitter account @mark munoz. “Surgery on Thursday.”
The Sonnen bout was supposed to be Muñoz’s ticket to a possible title showdown with reigning middleweight champion Anderson “The Spider” Silva, currently the best pound-for-pound mixed martial arts fighter in the world.
Instead, the 33-year-old Muñoz, fighting out of Vallejo, California, will have to wait a while longer before he could get another shot at the crown.
“Things happen for a reason, I’ll just be patient and wait for my turn,” said Muñoz, who has an impressive 12-2 (win-loss) record, including seven victories in his last eight fights since leaving the light heavyweight class.
Muñoz, a former All-American wrestler, forged the Sonnen duel after beating another contender in Chris “The Crippler” Leben in UFC 138 last November.
The injury forced the UFC to tap Bisping, originally scheduled to fight Demian Maia, who Muñoz bested in UFC 131 last June, to fight Sonnen in a five-round, non-title bout.
Maia will instead take on Chris Weidman.
Bisping has swept his last four fights, including over Jayson “Mayhem” Miller in Season 14 of The Ultimate Fighter, as he improved to 22-3 while Sonnen beat Brian Stann with an arm-triangle choke in his return fight last October to improve to 26-11-1.