UFC 133 loses Nogueira, Franklin and Matyushenko

The above photo has nothing in common with what UFC 133 will end up looking like, as it seems to be the most cursed UFC show since UFC 73 (remember that mess? Stacked – not so much). What started as the main event being screwed around thanks to a series of misfortunate events, we now have major problems with the undercard.

Rich “Ace” Franklin has dropped out of UFC 133 completely, after last weeks announcement that his opponent Antonio Rogerio Nogueira would be unable to compete on the card in Philadelphia. In place of this, Vitor Belfort vs. Yoshihiro Akiyama has been promoted to the co-main event of “Evans vs. Ortiz II”, and Brian Ebersole vs. Dennis Hallman has been promoted to the main card as well.

To make things more complicated, “The Janitor” Vladimir Matyushenko pulled out of his preliminary fight against Alexander Gustafsson last week due to injury. Replacing him will be upstate New York native Matt Hamill, who’s coming off his decision loss to Quinton Jackson two months ago.

What’s left of UFC 133 will go down on pay per view on August 6th live from the Wells Fargo Center in Philly, PA.