Forrest Griffin replaces Mark Coleman, faces Tito Ortiz at "UFC 106: Lesnar vs. Carwin"

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titoforrest.jpg

from mmajunkie.com:
Maybe we can finally stop with the running jokes.

With Mark Coleman forced to bow out of a UFC 106 clash with Tito Ortiz (15-6-1 MMA, 14-6-1 UFC) due to an injury suffered in training, Forrest Griffin (16-6 MMA, 7-4 UFC) has stepped up to fill the vacant role.

Yahoo! Sports was the first to report the matchup, which will serve as the co-feature of "UFC 106: Lesnar vs. Carwin" on Nov. 21 at Mandalay Bay Events Center in Las Vegas. The UFC has since officially announced the contest.

The bout will serve as a rematch of a razor-thin split-decision affair at UFC 59 in April 2006. Ortiz walked away with the win that night in the "The Huntington Beach Bad Boy's" most recent win over someone not named Ken Shamrock.

Ortiz fights for the first time since May 2008. During the layoff, Ortiz was courted by every major MMA promotion, but the former champ ultimately decided to return to the organization that made him a star.

Ortiz had back surgery during the break and now claims he is in the best health he has enjoyed in years.

Griffin looks to snap a two-fight losing streak. The fan-favorite and former "The Ultimate Fighter" winner suffered a TKO loss to Rashad Evans in a light heavyweight title match in December 2008. He was then dominated in a first-round knockout loss to Anderson Silva at UFC 101 in August.

Griffin sprinted out of the cage that night and has been relatively media-shy since the loss.

With the change to the card, UFC 106 now includes:

MAIN CARD
Champ Brock Lesnar vs. Shane Carwin (for UFC heavyweight title)
Forrest Griffin vs. Tito Ortiz
Luiz Cane vs. Antonio Rogerio Nogueira*
Ricardo Almeida vs. Jon Fitch*
Dustin Hazelett vs. Karo Parisyan*

PRELIMINARY CARD (un-aired)
Phil Baroni vs. Amir Sadollah
Marcus Davis vs. Ben Saunders
Jason Dent vs. George Sotiropoulos
* - Not officially announced

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This page contains a single entry by Ted Czech published on October 10, 2009 5:42 PM.

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