Griffin vs Franca undercarded at the door

This makes no sense. Tyson Griffin’s lightweight bout with Hermes Franca has been dropped from September 19’s UFC 103 main card and shoved onto the preliminary (i.e. non-televised) card.

Tyson is 6-2 in the UFC with five wins in his past six fights and five Fight of the Night awards. He counts Clay Guida, fellow undercarder Glieson Tibau, Frankie Edgar and Thiago Tavares among his wins. And Franca is 6-4 in the UFC, with Nate Diaz, Spencer Fisher and current WEC lightweight champ Jamie Varner on his hit list.

Yes, the card is fairly stacked, with the recent additions of Rich Franklin vs. Vitor Belfort and Mirko “Cro Cop” Filipovic vs. Junior Dos Santos to the lineup. They’ll be on the pay-per-view along with Martin Kampmann vs. Mike Swick, with the winner of that bout facing Georges St. Pierre for the welterweight title, Efrain Escudero vs. Cole Miller and Josh Koscheck vs. Frank Trigg.

Umm… Efrain Escudero vs. Cole Miller makes the cut but Tyson vs. Franca doesn’t? Yes, both Tyson and Franca have a tendency to take fights to a decision (meaning neither is really a finisher), but they don’t put on boring three-rounders by any stretch.

As for Miller and Escudero… Miller is an Ultimate Fighter season 5 contestant who’s beaten up Andy Wang, Jorge Gurgel and Junie Browning (and for that, we will be forever grateful), while Escudero is the winner of TUF season 8, a fact that I actually had to Google, which should tell you how memorable he is.