Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) was already getting negative feedback from jaded fight fans when it came to the UFC 318 pay-per-view (PPV) lineup. Now, the ESPN+ “Prelims” card is also in trouble after the injured Gunnar Nelson announced his withdrawal from his welterweight matchup against Neil Magny.
“I won’t get into any crazy details about the injury but I’ll tell you it’s a two-part injury,” Nelson told his Instagram followers. “So there is a tear in one of the muscles in the hamstring, which is a Grade 2b injury. It’s not too bad, so it’s possibly something that we could have worked with. However, the second injury is on the tendon inside the muscle, which is a full thickness tear, so a Grade 4c injury and that’s a more serious one.”
This is not the first time Nelson has withdrawn from a Magny fight.
“Basically, I’m absolutely useless when it comes to any type of grappling scenarios,” Nelson added. “I’m not able to wrestle or grapple or kick and apparently it will be another eight weeks at least until I can comfortably have any type of grappling training at full speed. At least eight weeks. The good news is, I won’t have to do surgery so I’ll hopefully be good to go at the end of the year or late this year, so that’s my plan.”
No word yet on whether or not UFC will seek a sort-notice replacement to fight Magny at UFC 318, which goes down on Sat., July 19, 2025 inside Smoothie King Center in New Orleans, Louisiana.
