Drew Fickett was looking forward to fighting Lytle after his win against Nakamura on UFC Fight Night 9. However, his body didn’t quite cooperate with his plans.
According to his manager, Joe Cavallaro:
The rumor for his replacement has been Jason Gilliam, in spite of his loss against Jamie Varner on UFC 68. This has not been confirmed by the UFC and TBD is still up on their main site. Props to MMAWeekly for bringing this forward and we will continue to monitor the matchup pairing here at Komikazee.Drew had been complaining his knee was not right for a couple of weeks. He tried to baby it and was hoping it would get better.He called and told me [that] after training, his knee had blown up like a cantaloupe. We talked about it and made the decision to withdraw.
Drew was looking forward to a great fight with Chris. He’s a tough kid and Drew has a lot of respect for him. We’ll be pulling for him to win. Hopefully, we can make the fight happen in the future."