‘UFC 133: Evans vs. Davis' will be held on August 6, 2011 at the Wells Fargo Center in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The event is headlined by a ferocious light heavyweight bout between former-champion Rashad Evans and undefeated prospect Phil Davis.
Rashad Evans' original opponent was to be light-heavyweight champ Jon Jones, who would be making his first title defense against his former friend and teammate. However, a torn ligament in his right hand caused Jones to withdraw from the card, and be quickly replaced by Davis.
Co-headlining the card is a pivotal light heavyweight scrap between longtime-middleweight titleholder Rich Franklin and PRIDE-import Antonio Rogerio Nogueira. Both fighters are attempting to rebound from a disappointing decision loss in their last performance.
Rounding out the main card are two highly anticipated middleweight bouts: Vitor Belfort vs. Yoshihiro Akiyama, and Jorge Rivera vs. Alessio Sakara. A welterweight fight between Rory MacDonald and Mike Pyle is also scheduled for pay-per-view broadcast.
Main Card:
Light Heavyweight: (#4 LHW) Rashad Evans vs. (#9 LHW) Phil Davis
Light Heavyweight: (#13 LHW) Rich Franklin vs. (#11 LHW) Antonio Rogerio Nogueira
Middleweight: (#7 MW) Vitor Belfort vs. (#21 MW) Yoshihiro Akiyama
Middleweight: Jorge Rivera vs. Alessio Sakara
Welterweight: (#24 WW) Rory MacDonald vs. (#16 WW) Mike Pyle
Preliminary card (to be broadcast on SPIKE):
Light Heavyweight: (#19 LHW) Vladimir Matyushenko vs. (#17 LHW) Alexander Gustafsson
Featherweight: (#3 FW) Chad Mendes vs. (#17 FW) Rani Yahya
Preliminary card:
Welterweight: Dennis Hallman vs. Brian Ebersole
Middleweight: Rafael Natal vs. Costantinos Philippou
Bantamweight: Ivan Menjivar vs. Nick Pace
Welterweight: Johny Hendricks vs. Mike Pierce
Featherweight: (#22 FW) Mike Brown vs. Nam Phan
All rankings are courtesy of USA Today/SB Nation's consensus rankings last updated on June 30th.