Salaverry Comes Out of Retirement, Replaces Baroni at BAMMA 6

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Middleweight Ivan Salaverry will come out of retirement to replace an injured Phil Baroni at BAMMA 6.

The promotion announced the news on Friday, reporting that Baroni had withdrawn from the bout due to a rib injury sustained in his last fight on March 25. In light of the injury, Salaverry will now face Brit Matt Ewin at the event.

BAMMA 6, which goes down May 21 from Wembley Arena in London, England, will be headlined by a middleweight title confrontation between Tom Watson and Murilo "Ninja" Rua. Also featured will be an additional 185-pound affair, as John Phillips locks horns with Frank Trigg.

Salaverry, 40, last competed in 2008. After notching a three-fight win streak from 2004 to 2005, he lost three of his final four bouts before hanging up the gloves. After dropping a unanimous decision to Nate Marquardt, the AMC Pankration representative rebounded with a victory at WFA “King of the Streets” the following year. The victory would be short-lived, however, as Salaverry was bested by Terry Martin at UFC 71 in 2007 and then Rousimar Palhares the following year at UFC 84.

"I am absolutely excited and really honored to be making my entry back into MMA on BAMMA's stage,” said Salaverry in a statement. “In the past few months of negotiating, I just kept training and telling my team that I had to be ready, and now here I am. [I'm] ready to get out there and perform to the level that will hopefully put me on a championship contention course.”