Machida injured, rematch delayed and other UFC roster rotations

Mauricio “Shogun” Rua is ready for his rematch with Lyoto Machida but don’t expect it to happen any time soon as Machida must undergo hand surgery first.

Machida defeated Rua in a controversial unanimous decision at last Saturday’s UFC 104 to maintain his light heavyweight title. Just about everyone except the three judges felt Rua had won the fight, including UFC president Dana White, who promised a rematch as soon as possible, potentially at UFC 108 on January 2. That is now out of the question. Hand injuries are a tricky thing – there are 27 bones in there, break one of them and it can take months to heal properly. So we might not see Machida vs. Rua II until mid-2010.

This is only the latest in a string of injuries and illnesses to plague the UFC roster in the past few weeks. Middleweight champ Anderson Silva is supposed to defend his title against Vitor Belfort at UFC 108, but that’s looking less and less likely as Silva recovers from elbow surgery and claims Belfort doesn’t deserve the title shot.

But that’s okay because heavyweight champ Brock Lesnar has come down with the flu (or something to that effect) and has had to postpone his UFC 106 heavyweight title defense against Shane Carwin. So they will now likely square off in the main event at UFC 108.

Then there’s welterweight champ Georges St. Pierre, who’s been out of action since he tore his abductor muscle in his win over Thiago Alves at UFC 100. No one seems to know when he might return, although the Super Bowl weekend card on February 6 would be ideal.

All of these date changes and question marks are on top of Jon Fitch’s rotating dance partners, from an injured Ricardo Almeida scrapped from UFC 106 to an injured Thiago Alves scrapped from UFC 107. Don’t be surprised if Matt Hughes steps in to fill the vacancy on the December 12 card.

Then there’s Kurt Pellegrino, a fighter I root against simply because he has his own name tattooed on himself like a vanity license plate. Pellegrino was supposed to face Frank Edgar in a lightweight fight on the Ultimate Fighter 10 Finale on December 5 but has withdrawn due to a back injury and will be replaced by Matt Veach. Veach had been paired against Canadian submission ace Mark Bocek, who will now contend with UFC newcomer Joe Brammer.

And speaking of guys I don’t like simply because they have their name tattooed on themselves, 10-time UFC veteran Josh “Tramp Stamp” Neer has been dropped from the UFC following his unanimous-decision loss to Gleison Tibau at UFC 104: Machida vs. Rua. Neer’s biggest wins were over wins over Mac Danzig, Din Thomas, Joe Stevenson and Melvin Guillard. Too bad he never fought Pelligrino.