Remember when the rumors began to swirl that the Anderson Silva vs. Chael Sonnen rematch would be moved to UFC 148? When those rumors finally became a reality the July 7th UFC 148 fight main card looked to be one of, if not the best UFC main card ever. Coinciding with the UFC Fan Expo, the card was in the drives seat for breaking records.
That was until the card got picked away by the UFC to fill spots on other cards that were hit with the recent run of injuries. The card most recently lost its co-main event and interim bantamweight title fight between Urijah Faber and Renan Barao to fill the vacant UFC 149 main event slot left by an injury Jose Aldo. Barao was originally scheduled to face Ivan Menjivar on the UFC 148 preliminary card before replacing an injured Dominick Cruz.
That move was actually the second fight to be removed from the UFC 148 card to bolster the UFC’s first trip to Calgary. After the middleweight title fight between Anderson Silva and Chael Sonnen was announced as the UFC 148 main card the UFC moved the middleweight contender bout between Michael Bisping and Tim Boetsch to the UFC 149 co-main event. That bout has since been changed due to and injury sustained by Bisping.
Only two of the five original UFC 148 main card bouts remain intact and the card that “could have been” is now just a “what if”. It’s not a total lost though, UFC 148 still has the highly anticipated title fight between Silva and Sonnen anchoring the card as well as the former light heavyweight champion Tito Ortiz in his retirement bout against Forrest Griffin.
