The UFC’s premier event of 2023 took a serious hit yesterday with the news that Geoff Neal was injured and pulled out of a highly anticipated fight against Shavkat Rakhmonov.
Rakhmonov is 16-0 and outplayed the extremely tough Neil Magny en route to a second-round submission victory in June. He’s another one of those fighters who struggles to secure his opponents, so when Neal revealed he was stepping down, “Nomad” was less than understanding.
“Apparently Geoff Neal is all talkative,” Rakhmonov wrote in a tweet. Another tweet included a quote from Neal about beating Shavkat “easily.” Rakhmonov said “Show yourself then.”
Few fighters have come forward to challenge the No. 10-ranked welterweight, but one man set to step in on Jan. 14 is Bryan Barberena.
“Neal outside. We were supposed to fight before on short notice,” Barberena wrote on Twitter. “Nobody wants to fight you. F— it gets to 180 and I’ll see you there!”
“Why not?” Shavkat replied. “Let’s do it for the fans.”
Crazy respect, let’s go! Barberena wrote. “UFC, Sean Shelby, Dana White, let’s make it official. Send the contract and let’s do it.
It would be a quick turnaround for Barberena, who is coming off a second-round loss to Rafael dos Anjos at UFC Orlando on Dec. 3. The entertaining brawler is clearly out to erase that memory from everyone’s mind, and he thinks a banger with Shavkat would do the trick.
Will the UFC agree with his assessment or will they stay the course and try to reschedule the Neal fight? That’s certainly what Neal hopes for.
“I didn’t know that getting hurt meant I was talking to myself,” he said. wrote on Twitter. “Mf, let’s re-book it.”
UFC Vegas 67 descends on January 14 from the UFC Apex and is headlined by a middleweight bout between Kelvin Gastelum and Nassourdine Imavov.
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