An undisclosed injury has forced Hector Lombard out of his welterweight fight with Dong Hyun Kim which had been pencilled in as the co-main event at UFC Fight Night 48 in Macau on August 23rd.
Dana White announced yesterday while in Macau to promote the event that Kim will stay on the card and now faces Tyron Woodley instead.
Woodley is coming off a disappointing unanimous decision loss to Rory MacDonald just 10 days ago at UFC 174, and quickly putting pen to paper on his next bout suggests that he’s eager to make amends for that performance as quickly as possible.
Prior to the loss Woodley had picked up big wins over Josh Koscheck and Carlos Condit which had left him in a strong place in the 170lb rankings at No.3, and even after his latest loss he’s still in the thick of things at No.4 – two places above Lombard who he’s just replaced in this fight.
As for Kim, he may feel a little hard done by to only be ranked No.9 in the division at this moment in time given his impressive run of form recently.
In total ‘Stun Gun’ has four victories in a row coming into this fight and has tasted defeat just twice in 13 Octagon encounters to date.
The real story for Kim lately however has been the fact that he’s suddenly become a fight finisher after a string of decision victories, knocking out both Erick Silva and John Hathaway in spectacular fashion.
So, Woodley has a tough fight on his hands if he wants to get back to winning ways, and overall this is a good stylistic match-up that doesn’t take anything away from the quality of the Macau event.
UFC Fight Night 48 remains headlined by a middleweight encounter between Michael Bisping and Cung Le.
