Even the biggest, baddest fighters in the UFC are falling to the weird flues circulating round the pond. Brock Lesnar, the reigning UFC Heavyweight Champion, has pulled out of his scheduled fight with Shane Carwin due to a sickness he hasn’t been able to shake for nearly a month. The Carwin-Lesnar tilt was intended to headline a card that already features the return of Tito Ortiz, who will fight fan favorite Forrest Griffin.

It’s hard to fault Brock here. You know that this guy loves to fight, so pulling out of this fight has to be a just call. He’s not injured. He’s not scared of Carwin, though we expect the fight to be a solid bout. The loss of Lesnar is certainly going to piss off a ton of fans who already bought tickets, but these things happen. People get sick.

November was supposed to be a mega month for the UFC. On November 14th, fight fans are going to see Randy Couture headline a card against Brandon Vera, who’s coming off a big win over Kryzsztof “The Polish Experiment” Soszynski. The card will also feature other featured fighters like Michael Bisping taking on Denis Kang, and Ron Pearson knuckling up against Aaron Riley.

The following week was the featured double-header featuring Lesnar, which will now only have one marquee fight. While the draw of Ortiz-Griffin would usually be enough to make a huge draw, especially with the media in a frenzy over the Ortiz-Dana White feud that is ever ongoing, the only other “big” fight features a welterweight bout with Karo Parisyan taking on Dustin Hazelett. With just a month before the November 21st card, will White be able to convince fighters with just four-weeks of prep time to step in to the octagon to market his a more attractive pay-per-view buy?

The Carwin-Lesnar fight has been rescheduled for early 2010, and could take place as early as January given that Lesnar has time to recover from whatever ails him. Cain Velazquez, who decimated Ben Rothwell last weekend, is penciled in to take on the winner of that fight.