(Clint Hester sends Bristol Marunde into a graveyard spiral at the TUF 17 Finale. Photo by Esther Lin for MMAFighting)
Ladies and gents, we got ourselves a curse goin’. After losing three notable American fighters due to injury — Anthony Pettis, Josh Koscheck, and Robert Drysdale — we have even more UFC 163: Aldo vs. Zombie withdrawals to report today. Also falling off the August 3rd card in Rio are…
– TUF 17 castmember Clint “Headbussa” Hester, the Georgia-bred middleweight who was supposed to face TUF: Brazil winner Cezar “Mutante” Ferreira. Hester has pulled out of the main card bout due to injury, and Ferreira will now face 8-1 newcomer Thiago “Marreta” Santos.
– British flyweight Phil “Billy” Harris is also out of his scheduled main card bout (for undisclosed reasons) against Brazilian contender John Lineker, who will now be facing 33-3 veteran Jose Maria Tome.
Is it a coincidence that four Americans and one Brit have all pulled out of scheduled matchups against Brazilian fighters on this card? Yes. Do Brazilian UFC fighters have a notoriously high win-percentage while fighting at home? Sure. Should we file this under #boringconspiracies? Why the hell not.
The current UFC 163 lineup is after the jump. You know it’s a bad-sign when a barnraiser like Machida vs. Davis is by far the second-most-interesting match on this card…
MAIN CARD (Pay-per-view, 10 p.m. ET / 7 p.m. PT)
Jose Aldo vs. Chan Sung Jung
Phil Davis vs. Lyoto Machida
Cezar Ferreira vs. Thiago Santos
Thales Leites vs. Tom Watson
John Lineker vs. Jose Maria Tome
PRELIMINARY CARD (FX, 8 p.m. ET / 5 p.m. PT)
Vinny Magalhaes vs. Anthony Perosh
Sheila Gaff vs. Amanda Nunes
Neil Magny vs. Sergio Moraes
Ian McCall vs. Iliarde Santos
PRELIMINARY CARD (Facebook, 6:30 p.m. ET / 3:30 p.m. PT)
Josh Clopton vs. Rani Yahya
Francimar Barroso vs. Ednaldo Oliveira
Viscardi Andrade vs. Bristol Marunde