UFC 146 All-Heavyweight Main Card Remains Intact, Despite Facelift

Stipe Miocic

When Alistair Overeem was pulled from the UFC 146 fight card last Friday, the dominoes began to fall.

UFC president Dana White slotted Frank Mir in for Overeem, making him the new challenger to UFC heavyweight champion Junior dos Santos on May 26 in Las Vegas. That left Cain Velasquez without an opponent.

UFC officials then removed Antonio “Bigfoot” Silva from his fight with Roy Nelson, pitting him against Velasquez. And that left Nelson without opposition.

The dominoes continued, as Gabriel Gonzaga was then pulled from his battle with Shane Del Rosario to replace Silva. So now you’ve got Roy Nelson vs. Gabriel Gonzaga.

Sticking with the all-heavyweight theme for the UFC 146 main card, however, Del Rosario wasn’t left out in the cold. The UFC late Monday night announced that Stipe Miocic, the only one of these players not already on the card, would step in to make Del Rosario’s fight whole once again.

Del Rosario (11-0) will finally make his Octagon debut at UFC 146, coming off of a victory over Lavar Johnson, more than a year ago, under the Strikeforce banner.

Miocic, however, is also undefeated at 8-0. He already has two UFC fights under his belt with wins over Joey Beltran and Phil De Fries.

But somebody’s O has got to go.

The lone fight not getting a makeover was the one pitting Mark Hunt against Stefan Struve.

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