An injury to headliner Glover Teixeira reportedly has forced a change to the UFC Fight Night 61 main event.
Teixeira (22-4 MMA, 5-2 UFC), a recent light heavyweight title challenger, was set to meet former champion Rashad Evans (19-3-1 MMA, 14-3-1 UFC) in the headliner in Brazil in February. But a Teixeira injury has scrapped that. MMA Fighting first brought word of the news, citing UFC President Dana White.
Instead, a heavyweight bout between Frank Mir (16-9 MMA, 14-9 UFC) and Antonio Silva (18-6-1 MMA, 2-3-1 UFC), originally set for the main card of UFC 184, will move up a week – and to a different continent – to headline the show.
There was no word on what will happen next for Evans, who now is left without an opponent in his return after more than a year on the sideline.
Teixeira is in bad need of a victory after losing back-to-back fights. He started his UFC career 5-0, including four stoppages as part of a 20-fight winning streak. He earned a title shot against light heavyweight champ Jon Jones, but lost a lopsided unanimous decision at UFC 172 in April. He followed that up at UFC 179 in Rio de Janeiro with a decision loss to Phil Davis, giving him the first losing skid of his career. Now his shot at snapping the skid gets put on hold.
Mir, is the former UFC heavyweight champion, and is currently riding a four-fight losing streak, the longest such run of his career after never previously even losing two consecutive outings. Most recently, the 35-year-old came up short in a February 2013 meeting with Alistair Overeem, meaning Mir will have more than one full year off between appearances.
Meanwhile, “Bigfoot” Silva has also been winless in his past three fights, sandwiching a pair of losses to Andrei Arlovski and Cain Velasquez around a thrilling draw with Mark Hunt. The September loss to Arlovski was a devastating knockout, which was a surprising result after going five full rounds with the hard-hitting Hunt.
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