Ilia Topuria out of Charles Jourdain fight at UFC 270 due to weight cut issues

UFC 270 has taken another hit.

MMA Fighting’s Mike Heck confirmed with sources with knowledge of the change that a featherweight bout between Ilia Topuria and Charles Jourdain has been removed from Saturday’s event at Honda Center in Anaheim, Calif., due to Topuria withdrawing due to issues with his weight cut. The change was first reported by Eurosport España.

This news comes shortly after it was reported that a middleweight bout between Rodolfo Vieira and Wellington Turman has also been cancelled.

Topuria was to make his fourth UFC appearance after scoring victories in his first three appearances for the promotion. “El Matador” is 11-0 as a pro and is coming off of back-to-back knockout victories, including a first-round finish of Ryan Hall in his most recent outing at UFC 264 in July.

Originally, Topuria was scheduled to fight fellow undefeated featherweight Movsar Evloev on Saturday, but Evloev withdrew for undisclosed reasons and was replaced by Jourdain on just 10 days’ notice. Jourdain is coming off of a 2-1 campaign in 2021 where he sandwiched a loss to Julian Erosa with wins against Andre Ewell and Marcelo Rojo.

UFC 270 will proceed with 11 scheduled bouts. Francis Ngannou fights Ciryl Gane in a heavyweight championship unification bout in the main event and Brandon Moreno defends his flyweight title against rival Deiveson Figueiredo in the co-main event.