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Tom Watson replaced by Magnus Cedenblad, Rony Jason off UFC Fight Night 29

A couple of fan favorites are off of upcoming UFC cards with Rony "Jason" Mariano Bezerra and Tom "Kong" Watson both pulled due to injury.

By Zane Simon
Jason da Silva-USA TODAY Sports

The unending cycle continues (I suppose that's why it's unending) with a pair of injuries to two of the UFC's more entertaining fighters. Both Rony Jason and Tom Watson falling to injury. MMA Fighting had the news on Rony:

Brazilian Athletic Commission (CABMMA) announced on Sunday that the featherweight was pulled out of the card with a lumbar hernia, and Dr. Marcio Tannure declared he wasn't cleared to compete on Oct. 9 in Barueri, Sao Paulo.

Loosely translated a "lumbar hernia" is a lower back injury. If I'm not way off base I believe it's often referred to as a bulging disc. It's something I've personally been through, and while it can be treated there's no way he could fight with that sort of instability. He was set to face Jeremy Stephens at UFC Fight Night 29 in Barueri, Brazil, a card headlined by Demian Maia vs. Jake Shields. No replacement has been named.

Our second injury of the day is to English middleweight Tom Watson. The UFC's UK branch made the announcement earlier Sunday via Twitter:

No report on what the exact nature of the injury is, but Watson did say that it will keep him from full contact training for a couple months.

His replacement, Magnus Cedenblad is coming off a very nice and very fast win over Jared Hamman at UFC 164 where he locked in a picture perfect guillotine. He'll be facing Alessio Sakara which should provide a nice step up in competition as Sakara is one of the most experienced fighters in the Middleweight division, but often struggles when facing fighters in the upper tier at 185. He's not a fighter to outmuscle and bully Cedenblad, which Francis Carmont was able to do in the Swedes UFC debut so I expect "Jycken" to have a decent chance to pull off the win.

Sakara, for his part, looked good in a DQ loss to Patrick Cote in his  last fight out. He was well on his way to a TKO win when he got over aggressive and landed a few shots to the back of the head. He's coming off a battle with a kidney illness caused by weight cutting which saw him pulled from a rematch against Cote who has since dropped to welterweight. With that DQ Sakara is now riding a three fight losing streak and in a division that has grown leaps and bounds over the past two years he may be in a win or get cut position.

That's all for the injury updates right now, but it's almost certainly not the last we'll see. So stay tuned for all the card updates, fight results, and combat sports news on Bloody Elbow.

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