4 Possible reasons why UFC 233 was cancelled

January is an important month for the Ultimate Fighting Championship.

Dana White's UFC entered into a new television deal for 2019, leaving behind their broadcaster of so many years in Fox, to sign with ESPN. As such their very first event on ESPN is set to take place on the 19th of January, with a huge Champion vs. Champion match headlining the card.

It is the only event UFC is holding in the first month of the new year. However, this was not always the case.

UFC was set to hold UFC 233 on the 26th of January. Continuing its tradition of holding one major pay-per-view event each month, UFC 233 seemed to have a lot of problems surrounding it from the very beginning. As the UFC neared the date, it became more and more evident that the pay-per-view was in danger.

However, when the event was cancelled completely, this was not something that anyone had expected.

While there are rumours now that the UFC had known about the Jones incident, and did not want back-to-back cards in California, we will not be talking about that as it is no more than a rumour.

In this article, we will outline four possible different reasons why UFC 233 was cancelled. In one of the reasons, UFC continues a trend which no one might have noticed in the past.

#1 Lack of big fights

One of the major problems that UFC had heading into the new year, was that their very first show was lacking a comprehensive big-name fight.

With the Dillashaw vs Cejudo Championship fight shifted to the UFC Fight Night 143 event on ESPN+, the card was left looking extraordinarily bare. Going on with the fight at such a time given that it was the first pay-per-view of the year, it would be setting an incredibly bad precedent.

UFC thus 'postponed' the event, in effect cancelling it, and shifting the fights already on the card to other cards, thus bolstering them.