Caught in the bizarre wake of an influx of injury withdrawals, UFC 133 is taking on a different look every week.
Most recently, the marquee middleweight matchup between Vitor Belfort and Yoshihiro Akiyama has now been upgraded to co-main event status, following the removal of Antonio Rogerio Nogueira and Rich Franklin's light heavyweight bout from the card. Nogueira was scratched due to an injury suffered during training camp over the weekend. A day later Franklin was forced to withdraw after the UFC was unable to find a suitable replacement opponent.
Light heavyweight veteran Vladimir Matyushenko has also been scratched from a scheduled bout against Alexander Gustafsson due to an undisclosed injury sustained in training camp. "The Ultimate Fighter 3" alum Matt Hamill quickly signed on to fill the vacated spot.
‘UFC 133: Evans vs. Ortiz' will be held on August 6, 2011 at the Wells Fargo Center in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It will be headlined by a light heavyweight rematch between Rashad Evans and Tito Ortiz. The two former champions fought to a draw at UFC 73.
Main Card:
Light Heavyweight: (#4 LHW) Rashad Evans vs. Tito Ortiz
Middleweight: (#7 MW) Vitor Belfort vs. (#21 MW) Yoshihiro Akiyama
Welterweight: Dennis Hallman vs. Brian Ebersole
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: (#16 LHW) Matt Hamill vs. (#17 LHW) Alexander Gustafsson
Featherweight: (#3 FW) Chad Mendes vs. (#17 FW) Rani Yahya
Preliminary card:
Bantamweight: Ivan Menjivar vs. Nick Pace
Welterweight: Johny Hendricks vs. Mike Pierce
Featherweight: (#22 FW) Mike Brown vs. Nam Phan
Middleweight: Rafael Natal vs. Costantinos Philippou
All rankings are courtesy of USA Today/SB Nation's consensus rankings last updated on June 30th.