Acupuncture mishap ruled Mitch Clarke out of Sunday's UFC Fight Night 74 event

Mitch Clarke

Mitch Clarke has a good – and odd – reason for why he won’t be fighting at Sunday’s UFC Fight Night 74 event.

Clarke (11-3 MMA, 2-3 UFC) was born in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada, and Sunday’s FOX Sports 1-televised event takes place at the city’s SaskTel Centre. He would’ve been a natural fit for the card, which marks the UFC’s debut in Saskatoon.

However, the 29-year-old recently underwent arm surgery, and he faces uncertain immediate future when it comes to his fighting career.

As the Star Phoenix‘s Dave Deibert reported:

The reason he’s not competing on Sunday’s Fight Night card, headlined by a featherweight bout between top-10 contenders Charles Oliveira and Max Holloway, is almost too bizarre to believe.

While receiving an acupuncture treatment, the needle broke off from the handle while in his arm. Making things exponentially worse, the muscle in his forearm was contracting at that exact moment. With no handle to hold on to, the needle was sucked deep into his forearm muscle. Clarke had to undergo surgery to have the needle removed.

While there is no good time for such a thing, it was especially bad for Clarke on a personal level. The acupuncture-gone-wrong in June happened the day before UFC announced the Saskatoon stop. He held out hope of recovering in time to compete, but even now he doesn’t have feeling in part of his affected hand. Clarke will take part in a grappling competition on Sept. 12 in Nova Scotia, largely to see how his hand holds up in competition.

Clarke, whose two-fight winning streak was recently halted with a decision loss to Michael Chiesa in April, said he plans to attend Sunday’s event as a spectator.

The full UFC Fight Night 74 lineup includes:

MAIN CARD (FOX Sports 1, 9 p.m. ET)

• Max Holloway vs. Charles Oliveira
• Neil Magny vs. Erick Silva
• Josh Burkman vs. Patrick Cote
• Chad Laprise vs. Francisco Trinaldo
• Olivier Aubin-Mercier vs. Tony Sims
• Valerie Letourneau vs. Maryna Moroz

PRELIMINARY CARD (FOX Sports 1, 7 p.m. ET)

• Misha Cirkunov vs. Daniel Jolly
• Felipe Arantes vs. Yves Jabouin
• Nikita Krylov vs. Marcos Rogerio de Lima
• Frankie Perez vs. Sam Stout

PRELIMINARY CARD (UFC Fight Pass, 6 p.m. ET)

• Chris Beal vs. Chris Kelades
• Shane Campbell vs. Elias Silverio

For more on UFC Fight Night 74, check out the UFC Rumors section of the site.