UFC Champ Robbie Lawler off UFC 193 due to thumb injury

The move to bring Ronda Rousey’s next title defense to Australia at UFC 193 came due to an injury to UFC Welterweight Champion Robbie Lawler.

After the announcement that Rousey’s fight with Holly Holm will now headline the Melbourne card on Nov. 14 (live in Australia on Nov. 15 with the time difference), the UFC announced that Lawler has suffered a thumb injury which has delayed his return.

No further information about the injury or his timetable for return has yet been provided. Lawler was initially scheduled to fight Carlos Condit in the Melbourne main event, but with that getting delayed that card now gets the next Rousey fight. That event is expected to break the UFC’s all-time attendance record.

The move is a huge one for the UFC, who will be holding the event in the 56,000 Etihad Stadium in Melbourne, Australia.

“She will break the all-time attendance record for the sport of mixed martial arts”, White said on ESPN Friday. The Georges St Pierre vs Jake Shields fight at the Rogers Centre in Toronto, with 55,724 people. Her last fight was a 34-second knockout of Bethe Correia at UFC 190 on August 1 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. He also revealed that the replacement in the main event slot would be Ronda Rousey vs Holly Holm for the women’s bantamweight belt. UFC President Dana White said the swelling interest in UFC in Australia has bumped the nation’s significance in the market. Due to the time difference, the live pay-per-view event will be broadcast in the United States on November 14.

Rousey will enter this bout with stoppage victories in all 13 of her professional bouts, including nine by way of first round submission.

Albuquerque’s Holly Holm is back in New Mexico after shooting her role in a movie. While the severity of Lawler’s injury is now unclear, Condit would like to keep the matchup intact for a later date. “It’s obviously disappointing, but this is something that I have been through before”, he said. “And I feel like that’s the way you need to be with any fighter”.

Smith told ABC News she was on a mission to meet Rousey in order to find out if the speech disorder she had as a child was the same condition that her daughter, Ashlynn, has.