BREAKING: Nate Marquardt fired from UFC; Pat Barry vs. Cheick Kongo moved to main event

Heavyweight strikers Pat Barry and Cheick Kongo were rewarded Friday by having their bout, which was going to be the UFC Live 4 co-headliner, moved to the main event.

This happened following the revelation, shortly before weigh-ins, Nate Marquardt had failed a pre-fight medical exam and would not be permitted to compete in Sunday’s main event against Rick Story at the Consol Energy Center in Pittsburgh, Penn.

The bout was to be Marquardt’s debut at welterweight (170 lbs.) after spending the majority of his 12-year pro MMA career fighting at middleweight (185 lbs.).

It is not known whether the drop in weight had anything to do with Marquardt failing the medical exam, as the results have not been made public at this point.

Filling in for Marquardt against Story will be Pennsylvania’s Charlie “The Spaniard” Brenneman (13-2). Brenneman was originally scheduled to fight T.J. Grant at UFC Live 4, but Grant pulled out of the fight earlier this week due to illness and the bout was scrapped.

Shortly after the weigh-ins, UFC President Dana White dropped the following bombshell:

“I’m sure you heard that Nate Marquardt is out. It’s true. He failed his medicals. Not only is he out of this fight, out of the main event on Versus, he will no longer be with the UFC.”

We are not sure yet what the exact reason is for Marquardt being released. He looked fine at the UFC Live 4 open workouts this week as you can see in the following video:

However, between the open workouts and the weigh-ins today, something has gone wrong. It’s not every day a UFC superstar gets fired the day before he is scheduled to headline a card on national television.

Stay tuned to ProMMAnow.com (www.prommanow.com) for updates on this developing story.

UPDATE (9:50 p.m. CT): We received an email response from the Pennsylvania Athletic Commission stating they would “give a brief statement cage side Sunday at 4 p.m.” regarding Marquardt’s situation.