Chael Sonnen vs. Wanderlei Silva shifts to UFC 175 in Las Vegas, dos Santos vs. Miocic headlines in Brazil

A shuffle to which UFC President Dana White recently alluded is now official, and a highly anticipated matchup between Chael Sonnen and Wanderlei Silva now takes place July 5 in Las Vegas at UFC 175, while Junior dos Santos vs. Stipe Miocic replaces that fight as the headliner for May’s UFC Fight Night 42 in Brazil.

White today revealed the moves to Kevin Iole of Yahoo! Sports though an exact reason for the moves wasn’t given.

Featuring UFC middleweight champ Chris Weidman against former light heavyweight title holder Lyoto Machida, UFC 175 takes place July 5 at Las Vegas’ Mandalay Bay Events Center. Sonnen (28-14-1 MMA, 7-6 UFC) vs. Silva (35-12-1 MMA, 5-7 UFC) serves as the new co-feature.

Sonnen and Silva recently served as coaches on “The Ultimate Fighter: Brazil 3,” which currently is streaming on UFC Fight Pass after filming wrapped earlier this year.

Sonnen, a former middleweight title challenger, is coming off a TKO loss to Rashad Evans in a 205-pound bout at UFC 167 in November. That dropped him back into the loss column after a “Submission of the Night” win over Mauricio “Shogun” Rua in August, a win that snapped a two-fight skid of title losses to then-middleweight champ Anderson Silva and light-heavyweight titleholder Jon Jones.

Silva has not fought in a little more than one full year. This past March, the vet stopped Brian Stann with a second-round “Knockout of the Night” in Japan, where he made his name fighting for PRIDE. “The Axe Murderer” will be chasing his first winning streak since 2005-2006.

The newly named “UFC Fight Night 42: dos Santos vs. Miocic” takes place May 31 at Sao Paulo’s Ibirapuera Gymnasium. Broadcast plans haven’t yet been made official, but the card is expected to air on FOX Sports 1.

Former champ dos Santos and Miocic were originally expected to meet one week earlier in the co-main event of UFC 173 in Las Vegas. However, with UFC middleweight champ Chris Weidman’s withdrawal from that card, the promotion has been shuffling around some of its top talent.

Earlier this year, UFC heavyweight Miocic expressed his willingness to fight dos Santos after the ex-champ respectfully called him out on MMAjunkie Radio.

“It would be a great fight; I would love it,” Miocic said in a subsequent interview with MMAjunkie Radio. “We have great styles for each other. I think it would be a hell of a fight, actually.”

Miocic (11-1 MMA, 5-1 UFC) was flattered even to be considered by dos Santos (16-3 MMA, 10-2 UFC), who said he was moving on from the possibility of facing Alistair Overeem after the ex-Strikeforce champ said a rib injury was keeping him from fighting.

For more on UFC Fight Night 42 and UFC 175, stay tuned to the UFC Rumors section of the site.

(Pictured: Chael Sonnen and Wanderlei Silva)