Ismailov called the reason for canceling the fight with Tokov

“We have bad news and good news,” “The Bald Predator” said in a video posted on his social media accounts. “The bad – our confrontation with Anatoly Tokov on March 9 will not take place. The good – it will take place on some other date this year. During the weight race I felt that my knee was getting stuck and behaving very unstable. Had a scan – the inner meniscus is torn, the outer meniscus is detached, and all in all, something for my surgeon to do. It’s nothing new, I know what to do – I will rehabilitate as quickly as possible and get back on track”

“I want to thank Mairbek Khasiev for keeping this confrontation alive, for understanding, and I want to apologize to Anatoly Tokov. I understand, he spent a whole camp, worked hard, and at the very end he finds out such news. My apologies, Tolya, you are lucky, of course. Anyway, I apologize to you sincerely, without any jokes. I didn’t do it on purpose. Everything that was going to befall us should not have passed us by”

Recall that the confrontation between the Russian middleweights was supposed to be a rematch – their first fight took place almost eleven years ago under the M-1 Global banner and ended with Tokov winning by kimura in the first round.