UFC Dublin Fighters Shed More Light on Joe Duffy's Withdrawal

Mass panic set in around Dublin last night as headliner Joseph Duffy was forced to withdraw from Saturday's show at the 3 Arena. As the card had suffered from the loss of Ben Rothwell and Stipe Miocic last week, the common refrain from the majority of fans was that the card was still significant based on the main event that pitted 'Irish Joe' against Dustin Poirier.

The controversial news broke at 10.36 pm, and the UFC's statement explained that they would not permit the Donegal man to take to the Octagon on Saturday night.

"Having learned that Duffy received a strike to the head during training earlier this week, UFC sent him for medical tests in Ireland for precautionary purposes. The results determined that Duffy suffered a mild concussion and due to the proximity of the fight this Saturday UFC will not permit him to compete," the statement read.

At his scrum at the event's media day, Duffy's teammate Tom Breese would not reveal who had caused the concussive blow to the Irishman, but did highlight that his withdrawal was completely UFC's decision.

"I was there when it happened, it was just in a sparring session last week, but, unfortunately, these things happen," said Breese. "It's a contact sport. I wasn't sparring Joe at the time and I can't confirm who he was sparring."

"He's gutted. He didn't pull out of the fight, obviously the UFC pulled him out of the fight. He's gutted. This was his event, he was the main event. I see a lot of people kicking the man while he's down and I don't like that."

Paddy Holohan had already been bumped up to the co-main event slot after an injury forced Miocic out of his bout with Rothwell. The Dubliner revealed how he found out he had been given the top billing at his scrum today at the 3 Arena.

"I was having a cup of tea," he smiled. "My girlfriend came into me and told me that I was the main event, the same way she had told me that I had been moved to the co-main event.

"I just laughed. At the end of the day, the lights don't go back on after my fight this time and that means nothing to me. That was the situation I was faced with yesterday and I've been in that situation before. It doesn't really matter whether it's at 5 o'clock or 10 o'clock. It's in my time zone. Maybe if we were in a different country and these things start getting shifted around, that's when it matters.

"For me, I'll just have two breakfasts. Instead of catching the first bus I'll catch the second bus. Then I'll go over and fight three five minutes rounds in front of 10,000 people screaming 'Ole.'"

Although a lot of fighters made themselves available to fight Dustin Poirier, it seems Norman Parke came the closest to getting the fight. Parke claimed that he took a phone call from Joe Silva who offered him a bout with Poirier, but the American turned the contest down.

"Me and Rodney went to the sauna to chill and I got a call from one of the guys on the PR team to say that I needed to come up to a room," Parke recalled. "He said he needed me up there and I asked him was it something serious and he told me that my fight was still on. I knew something had happened. Initially, I thought that someone had pulled out, I thought something had happened with the main event.

"I got there and they told me that the UFC's matchmaker, Joe Silva, is on the phone. I asked him was he alright and he said, 'No man, everything is fucked up. I lost my co-main event and now I've lost my main event.' I said if you need me to step up I have no problem, but I told him that I was already on a two-fight losing streak.

"He said, 'Don't worry, man. You're bulletproof', so I said 'no problem, let's go.' For me, that would've been a win-win situation, so I said let's jump on it. If I had won that fight I would've jumped up to where he is, but he had a lot more to lose than me. That's the way I saw it.

"If he really wanted to stay and fight and put on a good co-main event, I was there and the option was there to fight. It was up to him and I respect that, but now I've got to fight my fight."

"It would have been a co-main event, Paddy was going to be the main event, he said that to me on the phone. To be honest, I don't care where it was going to be on the card, it was going to be a good opportunity for me. Emotions were going crazy when we heard about it first when one door shuts another one opens."