The Ultimate Fighting Championship has announced on their Facebook page that Canadian Lightweight standout TJ Grant has been forced out his title shot against Ben Henderson at UFC 164 on August 31 with an undisclosed injury. Anthony Pettis has gotten his wish and will step in to take Grant’s place in front of his hometown crowd in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

Anthony Pettis raised some eyebrows about a month ago when he was forced to pull out of a Featherweight Title Fight against Jose Aldo at UFC 163, That didn’t stop Pettis from requesting to take Grant’s spot against Henderson less than a month later at UFC 164. Pettis and Henderson have a history as they battled for the WEC Lightweight Title at their final event back in December 2010 which saw Pettis take the decision on the scorecards and introduced the world to the “Showtime Kick”.

Grant’s injury was unknown as of press time and it’s unclear how long he’ll be out of action. Barring an extended layoff, Grant should stay atop the heap at Lightweight and should be in line for a shot at the winner of Henderson vs. Pettis II.

UFC 164 also features the return of former UFC Heavyweight Champion Josh Barnett taking on fellow former champion Frank Mir in the co-main event and can be seen on PPV, Sportsnet 360 and Facebook in Canada.

Source: http://topmmanews.com/2013/07/12/tj-gra ... t-ufc-164/

TJ Grant suffered concussion @BJJ practise. He kept it secret quite a while, since he was hoping he has time to recover and fight. Doctor advised him to stop training until he is fully healed. There is rumours floating around that Pettis knew what was going on with Grant and "faked" on injury to get out of Aldo fight and get to fight Bendo instead, but that is basically a conspiracy theory.

Here's what TJ told himself about his concussion:

"I was doing jiu-jitsu in a gi, and I was on top, trying to pass the guard," Grant explained. "My partner kind of went inverted and went to roll over. When he came back, his heel hit me in the head. It was just a good, clean shot in the head. I was kind of impressed that it didn't f---ing knock me out. It was a really hard hit, and there were actually two impacts on the same roll. I don't know which one did it.

"We just kept rolling after the first shot. From that point, later on in the roll he went for a sweep, and like I always would, I used my head to post out and stop it. That was right at the end of the roll, and after that I knew that I rattled my brain a little bit. I never really had a concussion that I can remember. I've never felt anything close to it, but it is what it is. I fought Gray a couple weeks before, and he hit me a couple of times, too. So who knows?"

Grant visited doctors, who advised him to give his brain a brief rest. Unfortunately, after spending a full month without any sort of training, Grant realized he wasn't going to be ready to compete for the title.

"I've been kind of basically living like a hermit here for the past month," Grant said. "I haven't trained. I haven't told really anyone except for people really close to me, obviously, and doctors. I'm just going through the process and trying to get better and really not doing too much. I've just been laying low.

"I was really just hoping to get healthy by this point and hopefully start some light exercise and then start training for the fight, but I just had to make a decision. I'm still not ready to go back to training, and I just made the best decision I possibly could. Maybe I'll be healthy in a week or two, but maybe I'll take another bump in the head. That's not going to be good. Back-to-backs aren't good. So I'm going to give myself a little time to heal and see what's next for me."