The latest Ultimate Fighting Championship card has just
experienced a few shake-ups the day before weigh-ins.

On Thursday, a pair of matchups at
UFC on ESPN 47
– the fight card that will take place inside of
the UFC Apex in Las Vegas on June 17 – changed. The first, the

news
came courtesy of the promotion itself, which announced
that Miles Johns
suffered an injury and is out of his bantamweight battle with
Raoni
Barcelos
. The fight has subsequently been pulled from the
lineup.

Johns, who declared he suffered an injury on Wednesday night during
training, posted on social
media
shortly after word spread about his withdrawal, where he
lamented, “Sorry guys. F—ing sucks. Never felt more ready in my
life. Going to get healed up and hoping to get this fight rebooked
asap!”

“Chapo” was aiming to make his first appearance of the year, in
hopes of stringing together a win streak after his decision win
over Vince
Morales
last November. After six bouts in the Octagon thus far,
Johns has only dropped two, with stoppage defeats to Mario
Bautista
and John
Castaneda
preventing him from putting together much momentum.
Barcelos, on the other hand, is aiming to break a very rough patch
that includes just one win in over two years. Most recently, the
Brazilian suffered his first knockout loss when Umar
Nurmagomedov
put him with a body kick and follow-up punches in
January. It is unclear if the promotion will put this fight
together again or move on with new foes for each 135er.

The second fight that transformed on Thursday saw Zhalgas
Zhumagulov
(14-8) lose his opponent of Felipe
Bunes
. In Bunes’ place on extremely short notice will be
21-year-old Joshua Van
(7-1). While Zhumagulov first wrote on Twitter
that the fight was off, accompanying that news with a joke about
his new haircut mimicking Paddy
Pimblett
, the replacement fighter story was broken by Eurosport
Nederland
. This new bout has since been confirmed by
other outlets
.

Kazakhstan’s Zhumagulov will be trying to pick up his first win in
nearly two years when he faces Van on Saturday. The flyweight
training out of American Top Team first succumbed to strikes from
Manel
Kape
in 2021, and a pair of split decision losses to Jeff Molina
and Charles
Johnson
sent him on the skid he rides today. From Myanmar and
currently residing in Texas, Van worked his way up to the promotion
by stringing together five finishes under the Fury Fighting Championship banner to ultimately
claim its 125-pound title. While Van was initially slated to meet
Kevin
Borjas
on the first week of this year’s Dana White’s Contender Series season, he
stepped up to skip the line and claim a UFC contract.





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Johns vs. Barcelos Off; Zhumagulov Now Faces Josh Van