By:  | December 9, 2022 4:20 pm

The Korean Zombie has injured his shoulder and will be unable to fight at UFC Seoul. He had been expected to headline the card which is set  for the Olympic Gymnastics Arena on February 4th.

In an emotional Instagram post Chan Sung Jung, who is better known as the Korean Zombie, admits he is worried fans could blame him if the card ends up getting cancelled:

 

View this post on Instagram

 

A post shared by 정찬성 (@koreanzombiemma)

Lost opportunity

In the post the Korean Zombie stated that he was so keen to headline this card he had even offered to move up to lightweight. He also sounds pessimistic about whether the card will go ahead without him writing in Korean that,

If the Korean card is cancelled due to my injury I’m really sorry for the Korean fighters who lost the opportunity to fight in front of their family and friends.

There are currently 11 fights confirmed for the card but none of them would make an obvious choice for the headliner. Korean fighters who are booked for February 4th include Kim Ji-Yeon, Da Jung Un, Doo Ho Choi, Park Jun Young, Lee Jeong Yeong, Choi Seung Guk and Park Hyun Sung.

But the UFC has not officially announced the event yet so it could end up getting moved to the Apex Centre or completely cancelled. There is precedent for the latter, in 2016 a fight card in Manila was scrapped at very late notice after headliner BJ Penn withdrew.

Damaging defeat

The Korean Zombie is coming off a damaging defeat to Alex Volkanovski at UFC 273. The fight was so one sided that there was much speculation afterwards about whether the 35 year old would retire.

He admitted that there was no prospect of him ever becoming a UFC champion. The gulf between the Korean and the current featherweight king is clearly vast.

But the Korean Zombie pledged to fight on and had wanted to headline the upcoming UFC card in Seoul. In his Instagram post he says he was offered several opponents and having offered to compete at either featherweight or lightweight he was offered a name that ‘anyone would be excited about’.

We may never find out which opponent was penciled in to headline the card in Seoul. It also looks like the event might end up getting relocated or scrapped altogether with the biggest star in the country set for several months on the sidelines.