Gilbert Melendez (Photo by ProMMAnow.com)

For the second time in the span of one month, a Zuffa-owned promotion has cancelled a fight card due to the injury of a fighter scheduled to compete in the main event.

Right on the heels of the cancellation of UFC 151, Strikeforce brass has announced that the Melendez vs. Healy card, set to take place this weekend in Sacramento, has been completely scrapped.

Gilbert Melendez was expected to square off against Pat Healy for the Strikeforce Lightweight Chapionship; however, an undisclosed last minute injury to Melendez caused television partner Showtime to withdraw from broadcasting the event.

According to Strikeforce CEO Scott Coker, this left the organization with no choice but to pull the plug on the entire card. “When Showtime informed us that it would not be airing the event, we made the difficult decision to cancel Saturday’s card”, said Coker.

A sudden rash of high profile injuries have absolutely ravaged Zuffa’s promotions of late, and Strikeforce is not yet fully out of the injury woods either, as a November meeting between Frank Mir and Daniel Cormier was similarly put on hold after Mir also went down injured in training camp.

For a promotion that has struggled to maintain a consistent volume of events, these setbacks could prove to be yet another nail in the quickly shutting Strikeforce coffin.

And, while it’s often easy to get caught up in analyzing just what this means for the organization, let’s also keep in mind that every cancelled card brings with it major implications for the thousands of individuals, from fighters all the way down to stadium ushers, whose livelihoods are impacted by the loss of a major pay day.

Stay tuned in to ProMMANow.com as we keep a close eye on Strikeforce news, notes, and analysis while the promotion attempts to overcome these major setbacks.

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