Brock Lesnar withdraws from UFC 106 due to illness

Yahoo sports reports:
Brock Lesnar, the Ultimate Fighting Championship’s massive heavyweight titleholder, was forced to withdraw Monday from his highly anticipated Nov. 21 title defense in Las Vegas against Shane Carwin.

UFC president Dana White confirmed the news to Yahoo! Sports. White said Lesnar has been ill for more than three-and-a-half weeks and unable to train. With the bout at UFC 106 less than a month away, Lesnar was forced to postpone the title defense.

“He said he’s never been this sick in his life,” White said. “He said it’s been going on for a long time and he just hasn’t been able to shake it.” White said he does not believe Lesnar had the H1N1 virus, commonly known as swine flu.

The fight matched two of the biggest and most powerful heavyweights in the UFC. Lesnar (4-1), a former World Wrestling Entertainment star, was a junior college and NCAA Division I wrestling champion. Carwin is a former Division II national wrestling champion. Both men weigh around 295 pounds and cut weight to make the heavyweight division’s 265-pound limit.

White said he is not sure when the fight will be rescheduled or if Carwin will still fight on the card. “We’re still working everything out,” he said.

Carwin (11-0), who made several appearances in Los Angeles on Saturday to promote the fight, was clearly disappointed at getting the news. “My heart just sank, as you can imagine,” Carwin said. “Hopefully, we’ll get it rescheduled soon.”

At UFC.com, Tom Gerbasi writes, "heavyweight champion Brock Lesnar has withdrawn from his UFC 106 main event title defense against unbeaten Shane Carwin due to an illness that has forced him out of training camp for nearly a month. The UFC hopes to re-schedule the bout for early 2010. Stepping up into the main event slot will be the highly-anticipated rematch between former light heavyweight champions Tito Ortiz and Forrest Griffin."

Update: The news and rumors are flying fast and furiously surrounding Brock Lesnar's withdrawal from his UFC 106 fight against Shane Carwin. With the Twitter era upon us, news changes in minutes. Carwin tweeted just a few minutes ago that he's been told by his manager Jason Genet that the fight is re-scheduled for UFC 108 on Jan. 2.