
King Green 'can't even f*cking walk,' which caused UFC 319 withdrawal
Thursday, Green (32-17-1 MMA, 13-12-1 UFC) was forced out of Saturday's matchup vs. Diego Ferreira in Chicago. Hours later, he revealed why. He said he is unable to walk.
"I worked so hard to get here – so hard," Green said in a video posted on his Instagram story. "I went through a lot of bullsh*t to get here. Back in the day, I had pullouts, you know? But somewhere along the line, I said, 'I'm never pulling out of a fight. If I've got to limp my ass there, I'll limp into the cage. But I'm never pulling out.' This one is a little bit different. I can't even f*cking walk, guys. If I had a broken hand, I wouldn't say nothing. I'd fight.
"So I'm sorry to anybody I let down. I let myself down even more than that. It just sucks to take this. I've got things to do for people who look up to me and need me and (I) take care of. I've got the f*cking crutches right here, the f*cking bullsh*t. It is what it is, man. I'm really sorry, and thank you for everyone who really rides with me. This sh*t is really appreciated. I'm really sorry."
Green, 38, did not specify what the injury was. Despite his mission to to fight regardless of the situation, the UFC 319 withdrawal was his 11th in the promotion. Green is one of the longest-tenured fighters on the UFC roster, having been imported into the organization in 2013 as part of the absorption of the Strikeforce brand.
With the withdrawal coming so close to the event, Ferreira (19-6 MMA, 10-6 UFC) was removed from the card. The promotion said it plans to reschedule the bout for a later date.
The current UFC 319 lineup includes:

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Meet Rodney Raclette. Indiana native. 62 years old. Big golfer. A huge fan of the LPGA. On Aug. 4, Rodney opened an Instagram account with the handle @lpgafanatic6512, and he quickly followed some verified accounts for female golfers and a few other accounts that looked official. Within 20 minutes of creating his account and with zero posts to his name, Rodney received a message from what at first glance appeared to be the world's No. 2-ranked female golfer, Nelly Korda. 'Hi, handsomeface, i know this is like a dream to you. Thank you for being a fan,' read a direct message from @nellykordaofficialfanspage2. The real Nelly Korda was certainly not messaging Rodney — and Rodney doesn't actually exist. The Athletic created the Instagram account of the fictitious middle-aged man to test the veracity and speed of an ever-increasing social media scam pervading the LPGA. The gist of the con goes like this: Social media user is a fan of a specific golfer; scam account impersonating that athlete reaches out and quickly moves the conversation to another platform like Telegram or WhatsApp to evade social media moderation tools; scammer offers a desirable object or experience — a private dinner, VIP access to a tournament, an investment opportunity — for a fee; untraceable payments are made via cryptocurrency or gift cards. Then, once the spigot of cash is turned off, the scammer disappears. While this particular con is not limited to golf, player agents, security experts and golfers say it has taken off within the LPGA in the last five years. Charley Hull, Lexi Thompson, Michelle Wie West, Morgan Pressel, Jennifer Kupcho, Hannah Gregg and Korda all have publicly posted warnings about the scams to their followers. Golf influencers Paige Spiranac and Hailey Ostrom also have spoken out. 'It's been taken out of my hands being able to communicate freely with fans,' Korda, who has a warning statement pinned to the top of her Instagram profile, told The Athletic. 'Because I don't really know their intentions.' On a handful of occasions, the victims of the scams have continued to blame the golfer for their financial losses even after being confronted with the truth, and some simply refuse to believe they have not been interacting with the real athlete, tipping into fixated behavior that concerns golfers and security officials. 'We've definitely had people show up at tournaments who thought they had sent money to have a private dinner with the person,' said Scott Stewart, who works for TorchStone Global, a security firm used by the LPGA. 'But then also, we've had people show up who were aggrieved because they had been ripped off, there's a tournament nearby, and they wanted to kind of confront the athlete over the theft.' Last May, a Pennsylvania man in his 60s drove four hours to Liberty National Golf Club in Jersey City, N.J., for the Mizuho Americas Open. He was there to meet 22-year-old American golfer Rose Zhang. He told tournament staff that she had left a VIP package for him and even booked him a hotel room. He said they had been communicating on social media for over a year, during which he had sent her around $70,000. Zhang's agent confronted the man, breaking the news that he was not communicating with Zhang. Another man traveled from Asia to a tournament in the United States, believing he was married to one of the players. A 68-year-old man from California attended several tournaments to see South Korean golfer In Gee Chun after being duped out of $50,000. England's Charley Hull warned her followers on Instagram about the scam after 'an incident' at a tournament in 2024. And in January, a man showed up at the home of golf influencer Hailey Ostrom after losing $50,000 to an account impersonating her. Spiranac said the reaction from some of the scam victims has forced her to change the way she works and lives. She now has security at every event, has an active restraining order against one of the scammed individuals, and when fan behavior escalates because of a scam — 'flare-ups' as she calls them — she has chosen to skip some events for her safety. 'I've had people come up to me at events, at outings, and say that they're in a relationship with me, or they come up quite angry because 'fake me' has scammed them out of money or has ghosted them,' Spiranac said. 'Those experiences are quite scary, but it's also very invasive.' Added Stewart: 'There's really two victims. You have the person that's been scammed, but really, the athlete is a victim, too, since they get blamed for it.' Not too long after joining a Nelly Korda fan page on Facebook in June 2024, a 72-year-old man from South Carolina, whose name is being withheld at the request of his family, received an email from someone claiming to be the real Nelly Korda. Email quickly turned to texting, texting morphed into phone calls, and within days, he told his daughter that they were in love. 'He was convinced he was speaking to Nelly Korda, convinced she was going to live with him, and they were going to get married,' his daughter, Shannon, said. 'But it was a cycle of different ways to get money from him.' She estimates he sent over $15,000. Shannon and her brother tried to convince him it was a scam. They also reached out to law enforcement, explored intervention services, attempted to catfish the catfisher, and even sent a plea via a direct message on Instagram to the real Nelly Korda to set the record straight. When the father confronted 'Nelly,' she had an excuse for everything: She had no access to her money due to a controlling manager and family. Her flight got canceled. The scam warning on Korda's verified Instagram account was a note for everyone else, not him. In March, as her father began drafting plans to sell his house at Nelly's request, one of Nelly's made-up excuses finally exposed her. She told him she had broken a bone in a car accident, but there was no evidence of a broken bone on Korda's verified Instagram account. Finally, the man realized he was not in a relationship with Nelly Korda. But his retirement fund was gone. Rodney Raclette, if he really existed, might have been similarly duped. When he commented on a video posted by the verified Nelly Korda Instagram account, people responded to his comments, directing him to other fan pages that the poster claimed were created by Korda to interact with fans. Another person claiming to be Korda sent him an Instagram direct message. After Rodney and that fake Korda exchanged niceties, she insisted the conversation move off of Instagram to email. She urged Rodney not to share her email with anyone, and wrote — in broken English — that he not 'take this opportunity talking to me for granted because not all celebrities come online to talk to their fans like am doing presently.' Next, she said she needed to see Rodney's ID for her 'safety and career,' but when Rodney made excuses as to why he could not provide any identification, the fake Nelly impatiently moved to the next question: 'Do you have a Fan Membership Card?' She told Rodney, 'if you're my biggest fan,' for just $700, he would receive access to all of her 'games,' her autograph, and new, customized golf shirts. Anytime Rodney questioned the price or authenticity of the card, Nelly threatened to leave the conversation. She would only continue if he purchased the card. Rodney became more skeptical and urged Nelly to prove it was really her. Within minutes, he received an AI-altered video of the real Nelly Korda speaking directly to him by name. It's nearly impossible to trace the source of most of these scams, and they're even harder to prosecute. Old accounts disappear and new accounts reappear by the hour. Patrick Chase, a private investigator and former LPGA security consultant, says the majority of catfishers are typically based outside of the U.S. The FBI is overwhelmed with identity theft cases and, according to Chase, it oftentimes won't address incidents unless losses exceed a certain dollar amount. Golf influencer Hannah Gregg has been communicating with several scam victims to collect evidence she can bring to law enforcement but to no avail. 'They won't do anything for me basically until something bad happens to me,' she said. Korda said she once reported about 20 spam accounts per day, but they are now materializing so quickly she can't keep up. 'You're just put into a situation you really don't want to be in. You feel bad, you feel guilty for people going through this. It's the last thing you want,' she said. 'It's not only putting the players in danger, in a sense, but it's putting all the fans in danger.' The day after creating the Rodney account, the fan page that had reached out to him — @nellykordaofficialfanspage21 — had been deleted. Rodney emailed the fake Nelly Korda to ask what happened. She replied: 'I deactivated the account because of imposters, and the FBI are working on catching them.' This article originally appeared in The Athletic. Golf, Culture, A1: Must-Read Stories, Women's Golf, women's sports 2025 The Athletic Media Company