Chris Weidman Tests Positive for COVID-19, UFC 258 Match With Uriah Hall Moved to April

Chris Weidman vs. Uriah Hall is being moved. The fight, which was scheduled for UFC 258 on Feb. 13, has been canceled, sources say, after Weidman tested positive for COVID-19 recently. The current plan is for the fight to be moved to UFC 261 on April 24, according to sources.

— Ariel Helwani (@arielhelwani) January 29, 2021

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The co-main event of UFC 258 just fell off the card thanks to the coronavirus.

ESPN announced on Friday that Chris Weidman (15-5) vs. Uriah Hall (16-9) 2, a rematch booked for UFC 258, will no longer be happening on that card. Testing positive for COVID-19, Weidman has been removed from the Feb. 13 event and he will not be replaced.

The promotion is currently targeting UFC 261 on April 24 for the relisting of the middleweight match, but the fighters have not signed yet. That card may take place in Singapore, as first reported by journalist John Hyon Ko, but that plan is still in the works.

Weidman was looking to extend his win streak to two, which would be his longest in over five years. The former middleweight king, who went a perfect 13-0 before his first defeat, has struggled ever since Luke Rockhold knocked him out in 2015. Four subsequent knockout losses to Yoel Romero, Gegard Mousasi, Ronaldo Souza and Dominick Reyes haunted the one-time light heavyweight. A submission over Kelvin Gastelum in 2017, and most recently, a decision victory against Omari Akhmedov in August 2020, have kept his career afloat. The 36-year-old New Yorker has already defeated Hall once, knocking out his foe in just over three minutes in 2010.

A finalist of Season 17 of “The Ultimate Fighter,” Hall is on arguably his best win streak of his career at the moment. In 2018, Hall knocked out Bevon Lewis to start the winning stretch, and he has followed with a split decision against Antonio Carlos Jr. and a knockout of Anderson Silva in October 2020 to rise up the ranks. “Primetime” sports a 75 percent knockout rate, with seven of his last nine triumphs coming by strikes.

UFC 258 will still go down on Feb. 13 at the UFC Apex in Las Vegas, with a welterweight headliner for the belt between Kamaru Usman and Gilbert Burns. Potentially elevating to the co-main spot is a strawweight battle between Maycee Barber and Alexa Grasso, while Kelvin Gastelum vs. Ian Heinisch at middleweight and Pedro Munhoz vs. Jimmie Rivera at bantamweight are also options.