Phil Baroni's road back to UFC stardom hit a major road block Tuesday, as "The New York Bad Ass" has been forced to pull out his UFC 118 fight against John Salter due to a collarbone injury, Baroni's agent Ken Pavia confirmed with MMA Fighting.When contacted by MMA Fighting, Baroni refused to comment on the injury, but he did tweet:
"I cant take it anymore. Im freaking out. anxiety im shot. beaten [sic]."
Baroni (13-12) dropped his return to the UFC last November when he lost via unanimous decision to Amir Sadollah at UFC 106. Since then, he decided to sharpen his skills in Thailand for an extended period of time and move back up to middleweight.
Conventional wisdom heading into this fight was that a Baroni loss could spell the end of this UFC run, but when Baroni was on The MMA Hour last month, he said that he was taking a different approach.
"It was a do-or-die [my last fight]," Baroni said. "This fight I'm not going to look at it that way. I'm going to go there and enjoy it and not put the pressure on myself."
Update: MMA Fighting has confirmed with AMA Fight Club owner Mike Constantino that Dan Miller has agreed to face John Salter. MMADiehards.com first reported the news.
MMA Fighting's Mike Chiappetta contributed to this story.
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