After Renan Barao was pulled from his UFC 148 scrap against Ivan Menjivar and promoted to an interim bantamweight title fight against Urijah Faber, the world’s premier mixed martial arts promotion needed to find a suitable substitute to face Menjivar in the July 7th event. Hello, Mike Easton (Pictured).
“Easton is one of the bantamweight division’s rising contenders who’s now going after the biggest win of his career, but he has to get past the incredibly dynamic and much more experienced Menjivar,” UFC president Dana White told FOXSports.com on Saturday afternoon. “Both fighters have verbally agreed to the bout.”
Easton will be riding a seven-fight winning streak into the Fourth of July weekend shootout. “The Hulk” was last seen posting a majority decision win over Jared Papazian at “UFC on FX: Guillard vs. Miller” in January.
Menjivar is unbeaten in his three big league bouts. The “Pride of El Salvador” submitted John Albert in his most recent Octagon foray.
The 135-pounders will perform in the show’s preliminary card.
MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada hosts the festivities.
Here is the show’s revised roster:
Preliminary Card:
Melvin Guillard vs. Fabricio Camoes
Gleison Tibau vs. Khabib Nurmagomedov
Shane Roller vs. John Alessio
Riki Fukuda vs. Constantinos Philippou
Ivan Menjivar vs. Mike Easton
Main Card:
Demian Maia vs. Dong Hyun Kim
Rich Franklin vs. Cung Le
Tito Ortiz vs. Forrest Griffin
Urijah Faber vs. Renan Barao (UFC Interim Bantamweight Title)
Chael Sonnen vs. Anderson Silva (UFC Middleweight Champion)
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