Sky Sports News has been a pretty boring channel lately with the lack of any sports to cover. It’s mainly covering the likes of Covid – 19 related stories obviously and even nonsporting news with plenty of filler in between which is understandable given the current situation.

However, avid watchers of the channel would have certainly got a giggle on the recent news involving former PDC World Champion Gary Anderson. The Scottish darts star was scheduled to take part in the PDC Home Tour. This is a round robin style darts tournament set to take place against the best players the PDC has to offer via the comfort of their own homes and to be shown on the PDC website over 32 nights.

Unfortunately for fans of Gary Anderson he won’t be involved in this tournament due to his Wi-Fi connection of all things. Weak connection at his home in the seaside town of Burham-On-Sea just isn’t reliable enough according to the man himself. Truly a bizarre reason to hear when it comes to someone pulling out of a sporting event. There have been many reasons for sports stars to pull out of events ranging from normal to quite frankly strange. So, let’s look at some of the most bizarre reasons athletes had to pull out of events. We won’t be looking at common injuries or any cheating scandals like doping or gambling we mean very bizarre reasons that you just don’t hear of. If you have any you think deserve a shout out that wasn’t mentioned let us know on any of our social media platforms under this article. As always keeping it to a list of five for OCD reasons.

Khabib Allegedly Eats Tiramisu

Russian MMA star Khabib Nurmagomedov is arguably one of the best lightweights of all time. He’s the current UFC Lightweight Champion and holds a professional record of 28 – 0. He’s beating plenty of top talent in a stacked UFC Lightweight division with one notable name missing from that list Tony Ferguson. Its not for the lack of trying the two fighters were scheduled to fight five times over the last five years and they all got cancelled.

Reasons for the fight been cancelled range from a Khabib rib injury, Ferguson having an issue with his lungs, Ferguson falling over a cable wire and suffering serious ligament damage in his knee and of course Coronavirus.

However, it’s their arranged bout at UFC 209 in 2017 that really takes the cake. This was the third attempt of making the fight but that even started off difficult with Ferguson holding out for more money due to his rising stock. It was eventually set as the co main event for the interim lightweight title at UFC 209.

However about 24 hours before the fight Khabib was rushed to hospital due to complications with his weight cut. He was complaining with extreme pain in his liver because of the bad weight cut and was medical unfit to compete. So far nothing to out of the ordinary this just shows the impact cutting weight has on a fighter.

The real controversy unfolded when the UFC aired their normal countdown show the hype the upcoming card. On the show Khabib and his team were shown having a meal at a restaurant and Khabib was filmed with tiramisu on his table. Fans were quick to slam the fighter for eating such a food this close to his fight while undergoing a tough weight cut and quickly lost sympathy for him.

The reason why its so only first on our list is because Khabib and his team denied he ate the dessert and claim to much has been made of the situation and that it belonged to a team mate out of competition. UFC President Dana White wasn’t buying it claiming that the team of Khabib sabotaged the fight. Tiramisu gate is still one of the big unsolved mysteries in the MMA world to this day and provided us with fantastic memes like the one below.

It Just Doesn’t Fit in With His Plans

Another one that is clouded in mystery but still worth a mention. Andre Agassi was a big star in the world of tennis and a definite fan favourite. He would have had plenty of disappointed Canadian fans when he pulled out of the Tennis Masters Series just hours before the event was due to start in Toronto in 2002. Agassi put the decision down to lower back and hip injuries while it’s a very late call to make is understandable.

His opponent Danish player Daniel Nestor came out and suggests that Agassi was disappointingly been cautious with his health with the 2002 US Open following the tournament and that the tournament never suited his plans which Agassi himself never denied.

This is more of a poor reason due to the very late nature of the pull out. Plus, many fans will be left very disappointed because they would have paid their money to buy a ticket just to see a star like Andre Agassi play. The governing body of men’s single tennis the ATP didn’t like the reason too fining Agassi $80,000 his second fine that year for a similar offence adding more fuel to the fire that the injury may have been exaggerated.

Very Late Payment Dispute

Now its really going to get weird.

Boxer Curtis Harper was set to take on undefeated heavyweight Efe Ajagba at a Warriors Boxing event in Minnesota in 2018. Everything looked good to go with both fighters making weight, making the walk and are stood face to face in the ring ready to go to war. Then the bell rings to start the fight and Harper immediately decided to leave the ring and the venue without throwing a punch to plenty of boos. This left his opponent Ajagba standing baffled as the victor with a DQ win.

It turns out that Harper was not impressed at all with certain payments he would be receiving for the bout. So, he decided to make that fact very public to really screw over the fight promoter Leon Margules. In the long run he screwed himself over with this incident going very public along with the name Curtis Harper for all the wrong reasons. He hasn’t fought professionally since.

Pink Eye

Right you can stop giggling now we all know pink eye was hilarious in school, but it can be serious and can lead to sight lose in very bad cases. It’s a contagious eye infection caused by a virus and it was serious enough to force a Jiu – Jitsu fighter out of competition. Well known star in his field Keenan Cornelius was unable to compete at the 2019 ADCC (Abu Dhabi Combat Club) due to a case of pink eye.

Even though other infections like staph are more serious the contagious nature of pink eye meant Cornelius couldn’t compete. Which is a shame for fans of BJJ as Cornelius had some very mouth-watering competition in his division.

Joseph Parker is Spiderman

I know this list was full of combat sports athletes but honestly with the nature of the beast that they are involved in some of the reasons for cancelled bouts just boggle the mind. Take this one as another very unfortunate and arguable most bizarre example.

Ahead of his heavyweight bout against British boxer Dereck Chisora in Las Vegas in October 2019 Parker was delighted with how his training camp went. He left his home of New Zealand with a big win in mind but noticed a small cigarette burn sized hole on his knee just before he left but taught nothing of it.

However, as his camp neared its end in Vegas Parker noticed his energy was completely zapped suddenly. He was also experiencing sleepless nights, bad sweating and stomach cramps so decided to visit a doctor. After some blood test he was told this was due to a spider bite he suffered in New Zealand and was ordered to undergo three weeks of bed rest and was declared medically unfit to fight.

Obviously, he was gutted to miss out on a big Vegas fight and let down famous promoter Eddie Hearn on short notice. Plus, ‘Joseph Parker Joseph Parker does whatever a spider can’ doesn’t even have a good ring to it. At least the talented big man bounced back with three wins since via stoppage.