UFC 233 Never Took Place: The Cancellation and Card Moves

UFC 233 never took place. It was scheduled for January 26, 2019, at Honda Center in Anaheim, California. The UFC announced its postponement on December 12, 2018, saying the bouts were being rescheduled. The planned event is now listed as cancelled in Tapology’s event record, so there are no UFC 233 results, scorecards or completed fights.

The distinction matters: this is a gap in the numbered-event sequence, not a missing results page.

Why was UFC 233 shelved?

The original headline attraction was Henry Cejudo defending the flyweight championship against bantamweight champion TJ Dillashaw. The UFC’s November 26 announcement placed that fight at UFC 233, with Dillashaw moving down to challenge for the 125-pound title.

The promotion then moved Cejudo–Dillashaw to its January 19 ESPN+ event in Brooklyn. ESPN’s contemporary reporting identified that move and several key injuries as the main reasons for postponing the Anaheim card. ESPN also reported that the UFC wanted Tyron Woodley to defend against Colby Covington as a replacement headliner, but Woodley was still recovering from a thumb injury.

That explanation comes from reporting, not the UFC’s formal notice. The December 12 statement simply said UFC 233 was postponed and that all previously scheduled bouts were being moved to upcoming cards.

Why did the numbering skip to UFC 234?

In its postponement announcement, the UFC explicitly said the next scheduled pay-per-view in Melbourne would remain titled UFC 234, rather than being renamed UFC 233. It also said the 2019 calendar would still feature 12 pay-per-view events, with more details about the postponed event to follow. Those were the promotion’s plans at the time, not confirmation that UFC 233 later happened.

“Postponed” is therefore the accurate wording for the initial announcement; “cancelled” describes the historical status of the planned Anaheim event.

Where did the planned fights go?

The bouts were spread across several cards, not transferred together to one replacement event. These were among the announced rebookings:

Planned matchup	Announced destination
Henry Cejudo vs. TJ Dillashaw	January 19, 2019, Brooklyn, on ESPN+
Ben Askren vs. Robbie Lawler	UFC 235, March 2, Las Vegas
James Vick vs. Paul Felder	February 17, Phoenix, on ESPN
Cortney Casey vs. Cynthia Calvillo	February 17, Phoenix, on ESPN
Markus Perez vs. Anthony Hernandez	February 2, Fortaleza
Marion Reneau vs. Yana Kunitskaya	March 9 event

Sources: ESPN’s report on the title-fight move and the UFC’s official bout-rebooking update. All destinations were in 2019. The table shows announced destinations, not fight results or a complete original card.

Not every pairing survived. In the same rebooking update, the UFC confirmed that an injury removed Dominick Cruz from his proposed fight with John Lineker. It also put Joseph Benavidez–Deiveson Figueiredo on hold, with Benavidez designated as backup for Cejudo–Dillashaw.

How UFC 233 should count in fight statistics

For a completed-bout dataset, UFC 233 contributes zero fights. Any rescheduled matchup belongs to the event where it actually occurred; its earlier booking does not create another appearance, win, loss or title defense.

Its finish rate is not applicable, not 0%. Using KO/TKO plus submissions divided by completed bouts gives a denominator of zero. A 0% rate would instead describe an event with completed fights but no qualifying finishes.

That distinction keeps cancelled bookings out of UFC outcome totals and prevents a card that never happened from distorting finish-rate comparisons.