Rustam Khabilov wrote a post on Instagram, in which he detailed the reason for cancelling the fight with Andrey Koreshkov
"After a long downtime, and waiting for two years, I was eager to get back in line and show a good fight. I went to several training camps. A lot of time, effort and work was expended in the course of this preparation. But, unfortunately, in the final stage of preparation for two weeks I fought a fever and an unclear infection. I trained till the last moment hoping to perform, but the doctors say that in such a condition the weightlifting would aggravate the situation even more. Not to let the organization and my competitor down I decided not to take any more time and notified Bellator of my withdrawal from the tournament. I hope that Andrei finds a decent replacement and he gets the fight. Andrey, I wish you good luck on October 23rd! I hope that our fight will take place in the future".
