Hurricane Milton forces Chris Barnett to withdraw from UFC Fight Night 244

Heavyweight Chris Barnett has been forced off Saturday’s UFC Fight Night 244 because of Hurricane Milton.

The UFC officially announced Barnett (23-8 MMA, 2-2 UFC) won’t be fighting Junior Tafa (5-3 MMA, 1-3 UFC) at the UFC Apex because of “issues” related to the storm.

The promotion did not elaborate on the exact issues facing Barnett, who resides in the Tampa, Fla. area, which is in the path of Hurricane Milton, a Category 4 storm expected to hit Florida on Wednesday night local time.

Barnett will be replaced by newcomer Sean Sharaf (4-0 MMA, 0-0 UFC). That bout was first reported by Code Sports.

With the change, the UFC Fight Night 244 lineup includes:

MAIN CARD (ESPN+, 7 p.m. ET)

• Brandon Royval vs. Tatsuro Taira
• JunYong Park vs. Brad Tavares
• Grant Dawson vs. Rafa Garcia
• Cory McKenna vs. Julia Polastri
• Alex Morono vs. Daniel Rodriguez
• Abdul Razak Alhassan vs. Josh Fremd

PRELIMINARY CARD (ESPN+, 4 p.m. ET)

• Jared Gooden vs. Chidi Njokuani
• Ramazonbek Temirov vs. CJ Vergara
• Jonathan Pearce vs. Pat Sabatini
• Themba Gorimbo vs. Niko Price
• Sean Sharaf vs. Junior Tafa
• Dan Argueta vs. Cody Haddon
• Clayton Carpenter vs. Lucas Rocha

For more on the card, visit MMA Junkie’s event hub for UFC Fight Night 244.