UFC 133 Fight Card News: Injuries Continue To Plague August 6 PPV Event

UFC 133 fight card:

Preliminary card:

A brief search was conducted to find a suitable opponent to take on Franklin on short notice, but with the event just a few weeks away (Aug. 6, 2011) it came up empty. There is no indication at this time if Franklin-Noguiera will be rescheduled for a later date or scrapped altogether.

Stay tuned.

The UFC 133 trauma continues with the pay-per-view (PPV) event set to take place less than four weeks from today at the Wells Fargo Center in Philadelphia, Pa., on Aug. 6, 2011.

Gustafsson has won three of four fights inside the Octagon since his debut, including two straight. Matyushenko was a nice bump up on competition level for “The Mauler,” but he surely didn’t catch a break when the veteran had to bow out.

Moreover, Evans vs. Ortiz is a rematch (they first fought at UFC 73 in July of 2007), even with some controversy. While the fight was declared a draw, most observers believed Ortiz would’ve been the rightful winner had he not been deducted a point for grabbing the fence to avoid takedowns.

Moreover, Brazilian MMA journalist Guilherme Cruz says he spoke to Machida’s manager, Ed Soares, and that Machida likely won’t take the fight:

We’ll have more on this situation as it develops, but the UFC is in a precarious position here. With a lack of available opposition and a short timeline making interest in a tough fight hard to come by, they’re facing a situation where they either rob Peter to pay Paul (i.e. take a fighter off of another fight later this year) or wade through without a key main event to anchor the show.

The news of Machida as Evans’ replacement was first reported late last night by Matthew Roth of Head Kick Legend.

The short-run realities vs. long-run costs are in deep play here. In the immediate run, this may actually improve UFC 133’s pay-per-view and ticket sales. Evans vs. Davis was a competitive match-up, but hardly a promotional blockbuster. A rematch, however, between Evans and Machida offers much more star power and storyline than anything Davis vs. Evans could hope to offer.

I can’t publish what I’m hearing yet in terms of who will replace Davis, but if it’s true, Evans has a serious, serious fight on his hands.

This also has to be considered a significant blow to Evans. He first waited for a title shot by sitting out a hugely inordinate amount of time (he last fought in May of 2010), only to have his title shot evaporate into thin air after Jon Jones became injured. Now he has to face who is likely to be a completely different opponent stylistically from Davis lacking proper preparation time. This also continues the trend the UFC has suffered through this summer with main event participant after main event participant fall prey to injury that forced cancellation or change.

The UFC 133 fight card at the time of this writing is as follows:

Cross-posted at “Chad Mendes Scheduled To Face Rani Yahya At UFC 133”:

The new match pits a top wrestler (Mendes) against one of the best submission artists (Yahya) in the featherweight class. It will be interesting to see if Mendes will risk going to the ground with Yahya, or whether he will put his developing stand up game to the test.

As BloodyElbow.com notes, Pyle has a history of serving as a litmus test for rising prospects. The UFC 133 fight card thus far looks this way:

Excellent opportunity for Menjivar to build on the momentum generated in his most recent fight. It’s also stylistically a fight that should generate action due to the fighters’ skill parity.

The match-up between Evans and Davis is noteworthy. Two former wrestlers. One former champion and a rising contender. But there’s little the two can do to replicate the driving force that the narrative between Jones and Evans carried. Evans vs. Davis is intriguing and will make for an excellent fight, but there’s no real substitute for what was likely to be a blockbuster of a main event for the UFC.

And now this fight has its own set of questions. Tomas Rios makes an important point:

And if he loses, Akiyama will likely be bounced from the organization unless the UFC is insistent on hanging on to him for expansion into emerging Korean markets. We shall see.

We will continue to update this stream as fights are announced, changes are made, injuries take place and the UFC 133 fight card takes shape.