Junior Dos Santos Out of Grappling Match With Fabricio Werdum

Former UFC heavyweight champions Junior Dos Santos and Fabricio Werdum will no longer face each other in a grappling match on August 8, "Cigano" announced Monday. The heavyweight duo was scheduled to compete at the Kings Championship in Florianópolis, Brazil.

The promotion has not yet announced whether Werdum will receive a different opponent unless he also leaves the card. Dos Santos said he is still open to fighting Werdum in grappling in the future.

"Cigano" and "Vai Cavalo" fought twice under MMA rules with a pair of wins for Dos Santos. First, he scored a massive upset with an 81-second knockout against Werdum at UFC 90 in 2009. They rematched 14 years later in bare-knuckle MMA, when "Cigano" won a decision.

Dos Santos had been away from competition since earning two consecutive victories in Gamebred Bareknuckle MMA, defeating Werdum and then claiming the heavyweight title by knocking out Alan Belcher in 2024, when he returned to MMA last May on the MVP show on Netflix, losing by knockout to Robelis Despaigne.

Werdum's loss to "Cigano" was his first appearance in combat sports since retiring from MMA in 2024, shortly after a controversial confrontation with Renan Ferreira in his only appearance under the PFL banner.

Source: MMA Fighting — read the original