Jingliang Li will not be fighting this weekend. The Chinese welterweight had been set to take on Dwight Grant at UFC 256 but the American announced yesterday he had tested positive for Covid-19.
Grant took to Instagram to break the bad news:
View this post on Instagram
The event is set for the APEX Centre in Las Vegas. For Jingliang (23-6) it represented an opportunity to bounce back after the loss to Neil Magny at UFC 248 earlier this year.
That defeat snapped a three fight winning streak for the former Legend FC welterweight champion who is a veteran of 13 UFC fights. He looks unlikely to compete again until 2021.
Grant (10-3) was in action more recently and is coming off a loss at UFC Vegas 7. He had won two out of four fights for the UFC since earning a contract with a win at Dana White’s Contender Series.
The event will be headlined by a flyweight title fight between champion Deiveson Figueiredo and challenger Brandon Moreno. The featherweight title fight between Amanda Nunes and Megan Anderson has been scrapped due to injury.
In total three bouts have been pulled from the card due to Covid-19. Angela Hill and Karl Roberson are the other fighters to have tested positive this week.
UFC 256, Las Vegas, December 12th
Deiveson Figueiredo (c) vs. Brandon Moreno (For flyweight title)
Tony Ferguson vs. Charles Oliveira (Lightweight)
Renato Moicano vs. Rafael Fiziev (Lightweight)
Kevin Holland vs. Ronaldo Souza (Middleweight)
Junior dos Santos vs. Ciryl Gane (Heavyweight)
Cub Swanson vs. Daniel Pineda (Featherweight)
Mackenzie Dern vs. Virna Jandiroba (Strawweight)
Gavin Tucker vs. Billy Quarantillo (Featherweight)
Sergey Spivak vs. Jared Vanderaa (Heavyweight)
Chase Hooper vs. Peter Barrett (Featherweight)
