by:  Cory Brady, Jack Bratcher

The UFC is reporting that Karo “The Heat” Parisyan has been forced to scrap his UFC 88 bout with Japanese veteran Yoshiyuki Yoshida. It seems that Parisyan has suffered a last minute back injury while preparing for this bout and will be sidelined for an undisclosed amount of time.

Parisyan was at the UFC 88 pre-fight press conference on Thursday where he reported for the first time in quite a while he did not have to cut much weight for this fight and seemed to be feeling great. Therefore, the injury must have happened sometime between Thursday evening and early Friday morning.

This must be very disappointing for Parisyan and the fans. The UFC does not have a replacement for Karo so the whole bout is scrapped and thus we get one less fight on the card and the fans who bought tickets get shorted a fight.

Parisyan was recently diagnosed with having Panic Attacks. Keeping that in mind, one may question the legitimacy of this reported “back injury.” If he truly does suffer from the anxiety disorder and it sounds like he does, one would have to imagine that Saturday’s fight could very well serve as a trigger. Karo really has a lot riding on this fight if you think about it. He lost very badly in his last fight. Couple that with his general attitude of “do you know who I am?” And one would have to imagine the pressure to perform on Saturday in front of hundreds of thousands of live viewers would be enormous. In fact many of you may start to feel symptoms of anxiety or panic from merely reading about the situation. If you do start to experience those feelings which also may include sweating or nausea, just breathe deeply….focus. Ok… continue.

Parisyan was looking to get back on track and into the title picture after his knockout loss to Thiago Alves but it now seems like the comeback trail will have to wait a little while longer. No wonder he’s experiencing an anxiety disorder. Everytime he gets within spitting distance of a title shot something comes up to set him back. That has to be very frustrating. Is it a curse? Karma? Part of an evil plot by Dana? Who knows…but keep at it Karo and hopefully one day you will get that title shot. In the meantime…breathe…1…2..3…breathe…

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