Breaking: Korean Zombie injured, forced out of UFC Fight Night 53

“The Korean Zombie” Chan Sung Jung (13-4 MMA, 3-1 UFC) has been forced out of his scheduled “UFC Fight Night 53” co-main event bout with Akira Corassani (12-4 MMA, 3-1 UFC), this according to his agent Brian Rhee.

Rhee told BJPenn.com’s Chris Taylor that “shoulder issues” were to blame for KZ’s decision to withdraw from the fight and added that he was hopeful that Jung may be able to return to action before the end of the year.

“The Korean Zombie” suffered a TKO loss (shoulder injury) to Jose Aldo in his last octagon appearance at August of 2013’s UFC 163 event in Brazil. That injury required Chan to undergo surgery and he has been on the shelf ever since the operation.

Prior to his loss to Aldo, Jung had strung together three-straight octagon victories over opponents Leonard Garcia, Mark Hominick and Dustin Poirier. “KZ” was awarded “Performance of the night” bonuses for all three of those wins.

With the news, Swedish featherweight fighter Akira Corassani is now without an opponent for the October 4 event which takes place at Ericsson Globe Arena in Stockholm, Sweden.

The “UFC Fight Night 53” lineup now looks as follows:

Main Card

• Gunnar Nelson vs. Rick Story
• Akira Corassani vs. TBA
• Jan Blachowicz vs. Ilir Latifi
• Niklas Backstrom vs. Mike Wilkinson

Prelims

• Scott Askham vs. Magnus Cedenblad
• Nico Musoke vs. Alexander Yakovlev
• Dennis Siver vs. Robert Whiteford
• Cathal Pendred vs. Gasan Umalatov
• Marcin Bandel vs. Mairbek Taisumov
• Krzysztof Jotko vs. Tor Troeng
• Ernest Chavez vs. Zubaira Tukhugov

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