Ilir Latifi out of Aleksei Oleinik fight at UFC Columbus

Aleksei Oleinik will have to wait even longer for a shot at his 60th win.

The UFC announced Saturday that a non-COVID-related illness has forced Ilir Latifi to withdraw from his scheduled bout against Oleinik, which was to take place on Saturday’s UFC Columbus main card.

A welterweight bout between Neil Magny and Max Griffin has been moved into the Latifi-Oleinik main card slot.

Latifi was to make his first appearance of 2022 after a February booking fell through when opponent Alexander Romanov withdrew for undisclosed reasons. The Swedish veteran is coming off of a split decision win this past June over Tanner Boser that improved his record to 1-1 since moving up to the heavyweight division.

Oleinik has been sitting on 59 career MMA victories since May 2020, when he defeated Fabricio Werdum by split decision at UFC 249. Since that win, he has lost three straight fights to Sergey Spivak, Chris Daukaus, and Derrick Lewis. “The Boa Constrictor” has been fighting professionally since 1996.

It is not yet known if the Latifi-Oleinik bout will be rescheduled for a later date.