UFC
Correction - Dana White confirms Lyoto Machida not in against Rashad Evans at UFC 133, Machida not likely to take the fight
Jul 13, 2011 - 1:00:29 PM Correction - Dana White confirms Lyoto Machida not in against Rashad Evans at UFC 133, Machida not likely to take the fight

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By: Jamie Penick, MMATorch Editor-in-Chief

Reports last night that Lyoto Machida was stepping in against Rashad Evans for the injured Phil Davis at UFC 133 were premature, as Machida had not yet agreed to take the fight, and now it's appearing he won't be accepting it at all.

Yahoo! Sports writer Kevin Iole tweeted this morning that Dana White had texted him saying Machida was in for Davis against Evans, but he has since corrected that tweet saying that Machida was, in fact, not yet in for the bout. That mistaken tweet led to the initial reports of confirmation on the fight.

Tito Ortiz had been offered the bout, but also turned it down. He explained his reasoning on Twitter, stating, "I have a life and things to take care of. The fight game is about making the right choices of my career. If you knew what I have been going through you all would understand. Peaking for a fight is what makes a fighter unstoppable! Timing is everything in life. This is a rebuild year for me not do or die. The time will come again!"

Machida has been the UFC's top choice, but hasn't immediately accepted the fight, and according to multiple other reports, he's not likely now to take the fight.

UK based Fighter's Only spoke with Machida's wife/manager Fabyola, who said it was too short of notice for the fight.

"The fight is close and for the sake of professionalism we can not accept it," she said. "We always do our best, but there is only a few weeks [until the fight] and it wouldn't be fair on the fans to put in a bad performance."

Evans has won two fights since losing his title to Machida at UFC 98. He defeated Thiago Silva and Quinton "Rampage" Jackson by decision in 2010. However, he held out for a title fight with "Shogun," but then suffered an injury six weeks before the fight and was forced out. Now he remains without an opponent, and no official word has come down from the UFC as of yet.

UFC 133 takes place on August 6 from the Wells Fargo Center in Philadelphia, Penn. It marks the UFC's first return to Philadelphia since UFC 101 in 2009.

Penick's Analysis: Iole's initial tweet was taken at face value because he's very plugged in with the UFC and with Dana White, so forgetting the "not in" part of the equation when making that post didn't help things. Now we still don't know what is going to happen for the UFC 133 main event, but as our own Rich Hansen and Matt Pelkey touched on in last night's MMATorch livecast at BlogTalkRadio.com/MMATorch, another option would be to pull Rich Franklin out of his fight with Antonio Rogerio Nogueira and put him in against Rashad, and to find a new opponent for Nogueira. But at this point we know nothing more than we did last night, with Machida now no longer expected to be the replacement.

[Lyoto Machida art by Cory Gould (c) MMATorch.com]

Post and analysis updated to reflect Kevin Iole's corrected tweet and new information on Machida not taking the fight.