

The Curse of Autumn '09 continues to haunt the UFC. Dana White says that Brock Lesnar is not only out indefinitely, but the UFC heavyweight champ appears to be in bad shape. From MMA Junkie:

White said Lesnar collapsed while spending time on a retreat in Canada and was checked into a hospital.



"[Lesnar] is in bad shape, and the reality is they don't really know all that's wrong with him," White said. "He owns a bunch of property in Canada. He went up to Canada just to get away from his house, to go up there and just kind of chill out up there.



"He [expletive] dropped. He went down, and he had to go to the hospital. They ran every test on the planet on him, and they ended up finding out something else was wrong with him."

As if that wasn't bad enough, MMA legend Antonio Rodrigo "Minotauro" Nogueira has been forced to pull out of his UFC 108 bout with Cain Velasquez following another case of staph infection. Again, from MMA Junkie:

"[Nogueira] got staph infection, bad, to the point now it's in his bloodstream, and he's probably going to have to be hospitalized and intravenously given the antibiotics," White said.



UFC 108, previously titled "Nogueira vs. Velasquez," is scheduled for Jan. 2 at the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas.



White said the recent string of bad luck for the company, which has included injuries to several of the UFC's most prominent fighters, is the worst he's seen in his time at the helm of the promotion.



"It's crazy," White said. "In nine years of being in this business, we haven't had this many injuries in one (full) year."

Suffice to say, this is a gigantic step back for the UFC's heavyweight division. Every time the division starts to pick up (signing Mirko Cro Cop, Randy Couture beating Tim Sylvia), it seems to come crashing down (Gabriel Gonzaga head kicks Cro Cop into mediocrity, Couture leaves the company). Now, when the company found a cash cow to lead the division, they're left in shambles. Couture's moved down to 205. Lesnar may never fight again. Nogueira will now have to deal with recovering from the effects of a draining infection.

What else can go wrong?