{"id":792574,"date":"2026-07-10T10:24:12","date_gmt":"2026-07-10T10:24:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/792574\/"},"modified":"2026-07-10T10:24:12","modified_gmt":"2026-07-10T10:24:12","slug":"kevin-holland-forced-out-of-july-18-fight-by-injury","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/792574\/","title":{"rendered":"Kevin Holland Forced Out of July 18 Fight by Injury"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The veteran was scheduled to make his 30th UFC appearance before suffering an undisclosed injury.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/mmasucka.com\/..\/..\/news\/kevin-holland-reveals-how-many-fights-he-plans-before-retirement\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Kevin Holland <\/a>has been forced out of his scheduled bout against <a href=\"https:\/\/mmasucka.com\/..\/..\/news\/exciting-jacobe-smith-hungry-remain-undefeated-2026\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Jacobe Smith<\/a> at UFC Fight Night 281 after suffering an undisclosed injury. The news was first reported by Kevin K and later confirmed by\u00a0MMA Fighting through multiple sources familiar with the situation.<\/p>\n<p>It remains unclear whether Smith will stay on the card or whether the promotion will seek a replacement.<\/p>\n<p>Kevin Holland&#8217;s Return Put on Hold<\/p>\n<p>Just a few months after defeating Randy Brown by unanimous decision, Holland was expected to step into the Octagon on July 18 to face Jacobe Smith in a bout that would have marked his 30th appearance in the promotion. His return will have to wait after the &#8220;Trailblazer&#8221; suffered an undisclosed injury that left him in no condition to fight next week.<\/p>\n<p>Just days before withdrawing, Holland\u00a0revealed he hopes to compete eight or nine more times before retiring.<\/p>\n<p>What Happens Next?<\/p>\n<p>With the event just days away, it remains to be seen whether the <a href=\"https:\/\/mmasucka.com\/..\/..\/ufc\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">UFC<\/a> will find a replacement opponent for Smith or remove the bout from the card altogether. Undefeated in his MMA career, the matchup was set to mark only the fourth UFC appearance of &#8220;Cobe&#8221; and would have been the biggest fight of his career so far.<\/p>\n<p>UFC Fight Night 281 takes place on July 18 in Oklahoma City and is headlined by a middleweight clash between <a href=\"https:\/\/mmasucka.com\/..\/..\/fighters\/dricus-du-plessis\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Dricus Du Plessis<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/mmasucka.com\/..\/..\/opinion\/dricus-du-plessis-vs-kamaru-usman-a-stylistic-analysis\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Kamaru Usman<\/a>. In the co-main event, Jared Cannonier faces Christian Leroy Duncan.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/realkevink\/status\/2075227188001915123\" rel=\"nofollow\"><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The veteran was scheduled to make his 30th UFC appearance before suffering an undisclosed injury. Kevin Holland has&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":792575,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[444],"tags":[49,48,641,7904,638,82,640,10092],"class_list":["post-792574","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mma","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-fighting","tag-kevin-holland","tag-mma","tag-sports","tag-ufc","tag-welterweight"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/792574","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=792574"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/792574\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/792575"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=792574"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=792574"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=792574"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}