Everyone Is Injured: UFC 153 Rejiggered
Photo by Jesse Reisdorf for StiffJab.com
by Dr. Octagon, J.D.
Jose Aldo’s motorcycle accident injuries turned out to be more severe than previously thought, so he’s out of UFC 153. Rampage Jackson is hurt and/or probably doesn’t want to fight Glover Teixeira anyway. If you remember, the last fighter Glover was supposed to be matched up against was Mauricio “Shogun” Rua, who turned down the fight in favor of the softer Brandon Vera.
Frankie Edgar still wants to wait for Jose Aldo. He didn’t plan to drop divisions so quickly, but stepped up early for the title shot. With that title shot off the table for now, it sounds like Frankie wants to chillax and wait for Aldo to heal. So the fight is scratched.
What do we get in its place? Looks like Anderson Silva wasn’t bullshitting when he said he’d fight any light heavyweight other than Jon Jones on short notice. The new headliner for UFC 153 is going to be Anderson Silva vs. Stephan Bonnar at light heavyweight. [[MORE]]
While this isnt the greatest fight in the world, Stephan Bonnar is always down for a slugfest. I suspect that this will be very similar to Anderson’s fight against Forest Griffin, in which Anderson made the former light heavyweight champ look like a punching bag. That being said, Bonnar has a legendary chin and is way bigger than Silva. This hould be an action-packed fight.
Given the fallout from UFC 151, which was cancelled due to Jon Jones’ refusal to fight a smaller fighter on short notice, it is refreshing to see a middleweight champion with everything to lose stepping up to save a card against a larger fighter. To be fair to Jones, Stephan isn’t at the same level as Chael Sonnen, and Anderson has more notice, but Bonnar still could be dangerous. Hopefully Bonnar is getting paid well for the expected ass-whooping he will probably take on Anderson’s home turf. People are going to bitch about this fight, but Bonnar will surely come forward and any time you get to see Anderson Silva fight it is worth the price of the PPV.
Rampage is out and replacing him is Fabio Maldonado, who has lost his last fight. Rampage was slated to fight Glover Teixeira, who no one wants to fight. So it’s not surprising, given the hesitation of most light heavyweights to take fights, that they have matched Teixeira against Maldonado, who lost his last two fights against relatively ho-hum opponents. Usually guys get cut after losing three fights, but I wouldn’t be surprised if Zuffa’s reps told Maldonado that they’d give him a few more fights for taking this difficult fight on short notice.
To further sweeten the card, they’ve also added Big Nog against Dave Herman. Another fight I’d like to see. None of these fights is going to be particularly important, but it should at least be a relatively action-packed card. Way better than the last time the UFC was in Brazil.
Not a lot of MMA going on this week, but there’s a ton of boxing that our editor should be covering, and I’ll probably throw up a scotch review (if I don’t get too shitty tomorrow night).