Former UFC Lightweight Champion Frankie Edgar will be getting an immediate title shot when he drops to featherweight after all.

Edgar has replaced 13-1  Erik Koch who was set to face Jose Aldo, MMA Fighting’s Ariel Helwani has confirmed. USA Today was the first to break the news.

Koch suffered a knee injury recently and was forced to withdraw from the fight, according to Helwani.

 

 

Edgar (14-3-1) has lost his past two fights to UFC lightweight champion Benson Henderson. He was expected to make his featherweight debut later this year before the injury to Koch.

 

Koch apologized to his fans on Twitter, stating “I’m sorry guys this has been one crazy year for me deff a hard one, I just wanna thank all of you guys for the support means the world to me.”

Aldo (21-1), who has won 14 straight fights, was critical of former UFC champion Edgar recently in an interview with Tatame.

“He said he wants to drop to featherweight, so I’m hoping he does that to end this story,” Aldo told Tatame.com. “He’s welcome here so that we can shut him off and he goes to the lightweight or bantamweight classes.”

UFC 153 is scheduled for October 13, 2012 at the HSBC Arena in Brazil

 

Story Courtesy of MMAFighting.com

 

Main card

Ben Henderson (154.4) vs. Frankie Edgar (154.6)
Donald Cerrone (155) vs. Melvin Guillard (157.5)
Jake Shields (185) vs. Ed Herman (185)
Yushin Okami (185) vs. Buddy Roberts (184)
Justin Lawrence (145) vs. Max Holloway (145)

Preliminary card

Dennis Bermudez (145) vs. Tommy Hayden (144)
Jared Hamman (184) vs. Michael Kuiper (185)
Ken Stone (135) vs. Erik Perez (135)
Dustin Pague (136) vs. Chico Camus (135)
Nik Lentz (145) vs. Eiji Mitsuoka (145)

***FAST FORWARD 3:25 INTO VIDEO***

 

The UFC has announced another bout for the  August 11,2012 UFC 150 Card in Denver colorado, and this one has fireworks written all over it, as featherweight kickboxing dynamos, Max Holloway and Justin Lawrence, are scheduled to face off, with Lawrence dropping down to 145 lbs. after previously competing at lightweight. Holloway, a Hawaiian native, got thrown to the wolves when he faced  Dustin Poirier on short notice in his UFC debut, but the 19-year old (the youngest active fighter in the UFC) proved he belonged in his next bout, an utterly one-sided beatdown of  Pat Schilling where Holloway nearly finished his hapless opponent with strikes on numerous occasions. Lawrence was eliminated in the quarterfinals of the most recent season of The Ultimate Fighter, but his flashy kickboxing turned a lot of heads, including that of  John Cofer,who Lawrence knocked out in sensational fashion via high kick at the season finale last month.