Johnny Walker out of UFC 311 vs. Bogdan Guskov with 'bad injury'

With just one week until the event, the UFC 311 lineup has taken a hit.

Light heavyweight veteran Johnny Walker has sustained a “bad injury” that will prevent him from meeting Bogdan Guskov on the Jan. 18 card at Intuit Dome in Inglewood, Calif. (ESPN+ pay-per-view, ESPNews, ESPN+)

The matchup was scheduled to serve as the featured preliminary contest on the UFC’s first numbered event of the year, but Walker (21-9 MMA, 7-6 UFC) said he could not proceed with stepping into the octagon after his injury, and offered an apology to Guskov (16-3 MMA, 2-1 UFC) after announcing his withdrawal on Saturday.

“I’ve been pulled out by a bad injury,” Walker said in a video on social media. “So I’m not going to be competing, and I’m devastated. A lot of hard work I put in over a few months of training a lot. We want to come back and do a show, but not this time. I wish Bogdan good luck. Hopefully he can find an opponent.”

It is unknown at this time if the organization will secure a replacement opponent to face Guskov on just seven days’ notice.

The latest UFC 311 lineup now includes:

MAIN CARD (Pay-per-view, 10 p.m. ET)

• Islam Makhachev vs. Arman Tsarukyan – for lightweight title
• Merab Dvalishvili vs. Umar Nurmagomedov – for bantamweight title
• Jamahal Hill vs. Jiri Prochazka
• Beneil Dariush vs. Renato Moicano
• Kevin Holland vs. Reinier de Ridder

PRELIMINARY CARD (ESPNews/ESPN+, 8 p.m. ET)

• Bogdan Guskov vs. opponent TBA
• Raoni Barcelos vs. Payton Talbott
• Jailton Almeida vs. Serghei Spivac
• Sedriques Dumas vs. Zach Reese

PRELIMINARY CARD (ESPN+, 6 p.m. ET)

• Grant Dawson vs. Diego Ferreira
• Ailin Perez vs. Karol Rosa
• Muin Gafurov vs. Rinya Nakamura
• Bernardo Sopaj vs. Ricky Turcios
• Clayton Carpenter vs. Tagir Ulanbekov

For more on the card, visit MMA Junkie’s event hub for UFC 311.