Reports: Josh Emmett steps in vs. Ricardo Lamas at UFC on FOX 26

It’s not the rematch he was hoping for, but Ricardo Lamas still has a fight at UFC on FOX 26.

Lamas (18-5 MMA, 9-3 UFC) will take on Josh Emmett (12-1 MMA, 3-1 UFC) at the Dec. 16 event in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada, according to multiple reports. MMA journalist Farah Hannoun was first to report the news on Twitter.

Lamas originally was supposed to fight Jose Aldo in the card’s co-headliner, but those plans changed shortly after Frankie Edgar was forced to withdraw from his featherweight title fight vs. champ Max Holloway. The UFC turned to Aldo as a replacement, and he’s now getting an immediate rematch to reclaim his title Saturday night at UFC 218 in Detroit.

Lamas has gone 5-2 since his 2014 loss to Aldo at UFC 169. Lamas’ losses came to two-time title challenger Chad Mendes and Holloway, the latter coming at UFC 199 in June 2016. But since the Holloway loss, Lamas has back-to-back stoppage wins. He submitted Charles Oliveira just over a year ago, and in July he stopped Jason Knight with a first-round TKO at UFC 214.

Emmett enters the bout coming off a dominant unanimous-decision win over Felipe Arantes last month at UFC Fight Night 118.

The latest UFC on FOX 26 card now includes:

• Robbie Lawler vs. Rafael dos Anjos
• Josh Emmett vs. Ricardo Lamas
• Mike Perry vs. Santiago Ponzinibbio
• Misha Cirkunov vs. Glover Teixeira
• Julian Marquez vs. Vitor Miranda
• Galore Bofando vs. Chad Laprise
• Tim Elliott vs. Justin Scoggins
• Oluwale Bamgbose vs. Alessio Di Chirico
• Jordan Mein vs. Erick Silva
• Sultan Aliev vs. Nordine Taleb
• John Makdessi vs. Abel Trujillo
• Jan Blachowicz vs. Jared Cannonier
• Danny Roberts vs. Sheldon Westcott

For more on UFC on FOX 26, check out the UFC Rumors section of the site.