Bellator granted injunction against Rampage Jackson, forcing him off of UFC 186 co-main event

A New Jersey judge as granted Bellator MMA an injunction that will keep Quinton Jackson from competing at UFC 186 later this month.

After an original postponement of New Jersey Superior Court judge Karen L. Suter's verdict in the Bellator MMA lawsuit against Quinton Jackson, we now know Rampage's future doesn't involve an April 25th showdown with Fabio Maldonado. Judge Suter granted Bellator their injunction to block Rampage from competing in the UFC 186 co-main event, per MMA Fighting's Ariel Helwani:

A New Jersey judge has granted Bellator an injuction against Quinton Jackson, preventing him from fighting at UFC 186.

— Ariel Helwani (@arielhelwani) April 7, 2015

Bellator filed a lawsuit against Rampage in March, citing a failure to fulfill his contractual obligations with the promotion before signing with the UFC last December. Rampage had 3 fights left on his exclusive Bellator deal but then left after he claimed that Bellator didn't act on renegotiating his deal within the 45-day window. This injunction merely keeps him off the card and doesn't close the case, the longer battle will now be between just Jackson and Bellator as far as getting him to remain with their promotion.

If you're keeping score, that's the 4th different change to the seemingly cursed 186 pay-per-view's main or co-main event. The original main event between T.J. Dillashaw and Renan Barao was scrapped due to a Dillashaw injury, the original co-main event between Rory MacDonald and Hector Lombard was called off when Lombard failed his drug test, and now this injunction forces the UFC to change its co-main event yet again. Fans better cross their fingers that we don't get a last-minute turn for the worse involving the main event of Demetrious Johnson and Kyoji Horiguchi.