Brian Kelleher has been pulled from his January 16th fight against Ricky Simon following a positive COVID-19 test.
The cancelled bout was first reported by Cole Shelton of MyMMANews, with the specifics on the positive COVID-19 test later being reported by Mike Heck and Guilherme Cruz of MMA Fighting.
The fight was set to take place on a UFC “Fight Night” card from “Fight Island” in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates.
It is not known at the moment if Simon will get a replacement opponent for his fight, which is just over two weeks away.
This is the second time COVID-19 has stopped a fight between Simon and Kelleher from happening. A fight between the two was first scheduled for September but later cancelled after a cornerman for Simon tested positive.
COVID-19 continues to affect MMA greatly, causing numerous fights to be thrown out every week.
Both Simon and Kelleher were coming off of a win from 2020.
Simon last competed in May, where he took a split decision over Ray Borg. The win for Simon snapped a two-fight losing streak.
Kelleher returned to the win column in September, where he stopped Ray Rodriguez in the first minute of action with a guillotine choke. Rodriguez took the fight on short notice.
UFC’s January 16th card currently has a featherweight main event between Max Holloway and Calvin Kattar scheduled.
