News emerged yesterday that there is a last-minute change being made to the main event of Saturday’s UFC Vegas 67 card with Sean Strickland stepping to replace Kelvin Gastelum.

Gastelum was forced to withdraw from the fight with a nasty looking “mouth injury”, so the UFC turned to Sean Strickland, who will now step in on very short notice and face Nassourdine Imavov at a catchweight of 205 pounds in the new main event.

Strickland will actually be headlining his second consecutive UFC Fight Night event, as he just lost a close split decision to Jared Cannonier at UFC Vegas 66 in the final main event of 2022.

While last minute cancellations and fight changes during fight week are never ideal, this is one of the rare times where the new matchup actually has potential to be as good or better than the original one.

Despite entering this one on a two-fight losing skid, Strickland easily could have won his fight against Cannonier if he had simply upped his volume and pushed harder at key moments in the fight.

Gastelum also would’ve entered this fight off back-to-back losses, however, he has lost five of his previous six overall, and has largely struggled the past couple of years.

Imavov is 4-1 in the UFC so far against some pretty solid competition, and despite not having any “championship round” experience, I absolutely loved him in the original matchup this weekend against Gastelum.

However, Imavov will lose some of the size advantages he would’ve held in that matchup now vs Strickland, not to mention he will technically be fighting up a weight class now with the catchweight.

I had originally hoped to have my picks for this weekend posted later today, but with the new main event being announced, it looks like it’s back to the lab for a little bit more research on this one.

Check back here tomorrow to see my full picks for UFC Vegas 67, and in the meantime, feel free to check out my Underdog of the Week and WagerWire Fighter Spotlight featuring Mateusz Rebecki.

Both of those articles are the first in a line of new series that I will be writing at WagerWire for each UFC event, so be sure to keep an eye out for future installments!

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