Jim Wallhead out at UFC Fight Night 118, promotion seeks new foe for Warlley Alves

British vet “Judo” Jim Wallhead (29-11 MMA, 0-2 UFC) has been forced to withdraw from next week’s UFC Fight Night 118 event, and matchmakers are seeking a new opponent for Warlley Alves (10-2 MMA, 4-2 UFC).

MMAjunkie today confirmed the Wallhead injury with UFC officials.

Featuring a headlining contest between Donald Cerrone and Darren Till, UFC Fight Night 118 takes place Saturday at Ergo Arena in Gdansk, Poland. The entire card streams on UFC Fight Pass.

Alves, 26, was the middleweight winner of “The Ultimate Fighter: Brazil 3,” though he immediately returned to the welterweight division for his next three contests, where he earned victories over Alan Jouban, Nordine Taleb and Colby Covington. However, Alves has struggled in his past two outings, suffering losses to Bryan Barberena and Kamaru Usman and now finds himself looking to break a two-fight losing streak.

Meanwhile, Wallhead, 37, is a longtime veteran of the European scene, competing professionally since 2005 and earning notable career wins over the likes of Igor Araujo, Che Mills, Frank Trigg and Joey Villasenor, among others. His persistence finally earned a UFC call in late 2016, but he’s since suffered back-to-back losses to Jessin Ayari and Luan Chagas, and was looking at a third shot at picking up a first UFC win.

A timetable for Wallhead’s return was not immediately clear.

With the change to the card, UFC Fight Night 118 currently includes:

MAIN CARD (UFC Fight Pass, 3 p.m. ET)

• Donald Cerrone vs. Darren Till
• Jodie Esquibel vs. Karolina Kowalkiewicz
• Jan Blachowicz vs. Devin Clark
• Oskar Piechota vs. Jonathan Wilson

PRELIMINARY CARD (UFC Fight Pass, 11:45 a.m. ET )

• Nasrat Haqparast vs. Marcin Held
• Anthony Hamilton vs. Adam Wieczorek
• Brian Kelleher vs. Damian Stasiak
• Sam Alvey vs. Ramazan Emeev
• Andre Fili vs. Artem Lobov
• Warlley Alves vs. opponent TBA
• Aspen Ladd vs. Lina Lansberg
• Felipe Arantes vs. Josh Emmett

For more on UFC Fight Night 118, check out the UFC Rumors section of the site.