(The best bodyguards are the ones that just look like random fat guys. Photo courtesy of Kenny Florian‘s Facebook page.)

We’ll let Kenny break the bad news himself:

It is with deep regret that I will not be able to compete in my scheduled fight against Evan Dunham on January 22nd, due to a knee injury I sustained during training this morning. Although I have not had an MRI as of yet; the doctors are cautiously optimistic that it will not require surgery. I want to express my sincere apologies to the fans, the UFC and Evan for not being able to compete at UFC Fight Night 23: Fight for the Troops 2. Since early September, I have been training for this fight. Evan is a great fighter and has undoubtedly been working very hard towards this fight as well. Plus, it is a big disappointment that I will not be able to fight in the octagon for the brave soldiers that fight for us. I am determined to return to the octagon in the first half on 2011. Accordingly, I will keep you all updated.

The Fight for the Troops 2 main event was to be Florian’s return to the cage after his tough unanimous decision loss against Gray Maynard in August. Dunham most recently dropped a controversial split-decision to Sean Sherk at UFC 119 — but luckily, he already has a replacement opponent lined up for January…


Though Melvin Guillard was originally slated to take on former training partner Yves Edwards in a preliminary card bout at FftT2, a new report from Heavy.com claims that Guillard will now be Dunham’s replacement in the main event. Guillard went 3-0 in the UFC in 2010, with wins over Ronnys Torres (UD), Waylon Lowe (TKO R1), and Jeremy Stephens (SD). As of yesterday, Yves Edwards had not been informed that he wouldn’t be fighting Guillard anymore. Ain’t that always the way.

This isn’t the first time that Kenny Florian has had unfortunate knee-issues. And though Ken-Flo is taking the whole situation hard, he’s keeping things in perspective:

As I was sitting in the Dr. office today I was all down & u could see it on my face. A man sat down right next to me with an amputated leg. He said "hey, I’ll never get mine back. I’m finished" & gave me a pat on my back.