Less than a week after losing his spot on the UFC on Fox 4 fight card scheduled for next Saturday night in Los Angeles, Travis Browne has a new opponent and a new venue.
It was reported on Friday that Browne, a 13-0-1 heavyweight fighting out of Greg Jackson's gym in New Mexico, will face Antonio "Bigfoot" Silva in the main event at UFC on FX 5, scheduled for October at the Target Center in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
Browne had originally been scheduled to take on Ben Rothwell next Saturday night before Rothwell withdrew with an injury, and with the UFC unable to find a suitable replacement on short notice, Browne was removed from the card entirely. Instead, he'll get Silva, a fighter with a bigger name, but a less-than-impressive recent record.
Silva holds victories over a pair former UFC Heavyweight Champions in Ricco Rodriguez (February 2008) and Andrei Arlovski (May 2010), and looked to push himself to the next level when he scored a TKO victory (doctor stoppage) over Fedor Emelianenko in the first round of the Strikeforce Heavyweight Grand Prix last year. However, he was knocked out in the second round of the tournament by Daniel Cormier (who entered as a replacement for Alistair Overeem) and suffered a similar fate in his UFC debut against Cain Velasquez (Cormier's teammate at American Kickboxing Academy) at UFC 146. Silva is reeling, and a matchup against an undefeated prospect on the rise like Browne won't make things much easier on him.
For Browne, on the other hand, Silva may be the most formidable fighter he's stepped into the Octagon with. "Hapa" does hold a knockout victory over fellow up-and-comer Stefan Struve and fought to a draw with Cheick Kongo two years ago at UFC 120, but neither of those fighters has the kind of wins on his résumé that "Bigfoot" does. Velasquez is going right to a UFC Heavyweight Championship rematch with Junior dos Santos, and while Browne won't have quite that same opportunity - the line after Velasquez could include Daniel Cormier and Alistair Overeem - the fight represents an opportunity to take a big step forward in the UFC's heavyweight division.
