Hamstring Injury Forces Gunnar Nelson Out of UFC 318

Gunnar Nelson will not be competing in New Orleans two weeks from now.

The welterweight has been forced to pull out of a proposed booking against Neil Magny at UFC 318. Nelson addressed the specifics behind his withdrawal in a video on Instagram.

“Maybe some of you have heard. I’ve had to withdraw from my fight with Neil Magny on July 19 due to a hamstring injury,” Nelson said. “I won’t get into any crazy details about the injury but I’ll tell you it’s a two-part injury, so there is a tear in one of the muscles in the hamstring, which is a Grade 2b injury. It’s not too bad, so it’s possibly something that we could have worked with.

“However, the second injury is on the tendon inside the muscle, which is a full thickness tear, so a Grade 4c injury and that’s a more serious one. Basically, I’m absolutely useless when it comes to any type of grappling scenarios. I’m not able to wrestle or grapple or kick and apparently it will be another eight weeks at least until I can comfortably have any type of grappling training at full speed. At least eight weeks.”

Nelson ‘Optimistic’ for Late 2025 Return

Nelson returned to action for the first time in two years at UFC London, where he dropped a unanimous decision to Kevin Holland on March 22. The Iceland native, who turns 37 later this month, is hopeful that he’ll be able to fight before the end of this year.

The good news is I won’t have to do surgery so I’ll hopefully be good to go at the end of the year or late this year, so that’s my plan,” Nelson said. “That’s the aim. I’m optimistic that I’ll get this sorted in a few months, in a couple of months.”

UFC 318 takes place at the Smoothie King Center in New Orleans and is headlined by Dustin Poirier’s farewell fight against Max Holloway.

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