The news that nobody who was planning on going to the UFC's return to Ireland was delivered late on Friday night.
Gunnar Nelson vs Dong Hyun Kim has been called off.
Many were excited to see Nelson return to action after looking so impressive against Albert Tumenov back in May, but sadly it seems as though he will miss the event entirely, seemingly due to an injury sustained in training.
The Nelson-Kim Belfast main event is off. Mousasi-Hall 2 is in the works as the new main, per sources. Story coming to @MMAFighting shortly.
— Ariel Helwani (@arielhelwani) October 21, 2016
Nelson-Kim to Hall-Mousasi 2 marks the 32nd main or co-main event change to the UFC calendar so far in 2016.
— Mike Bohn (@MikeBohnMMA) October 21, 2016
Gegard Mousasi vs Uriah Hall will now be the UFC Belfast main event, a rematch of a fight that took place in September 2015. Hall was the victor that time, but Mousasi will be out for revenge fresh off of finishing Vitor Belfort in the second round at UFC 204.
As Mike Bohn pointed out above, this is the 32nd time in 2016 that a main or co-main event has been changed, something that will not be lost on the Irish fans that attended the last UFC event in Dublin, where numerous fights were scrapped resulting in Paddy Holohan vs Louis Smolka being billed as the main event.
