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Alessio Sakara injured and removed from UFC 133 fight card

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And his former opponent, Jorge Rivera, tells The MMA Hour he's currently waiting for the promotion to find him a short notice replacement for the UFC 133 pay-per-view on August 6 in Philadelphia.

"El Conquistador" mentioned Constantinos Philippou as a potential replacement opponent, which would screw with the preliminary card, as well. Philippou is currently set to face Rafael Natal on the Facebook broadcasted portion of the prelims.

The UFC has not confirmed any of this just yet but wow -- what a mess.

The culprit for Sakara's injury is a torn ACL, which we can assume he sustained because the God's of MMA just plain don't want this fight to happen.

This marks the third time the UFC has attempted to set up a match-up between Rivera and Sakara and each time something happened beforehand to make sure it didn't go down.

Back at UFC 118, it was Rivera that suffered an injury. Then at UFC 122, Sakara got all sicky-sicky and pulled out. Now, it's Sakara again. If and when the UFC tries to set up this fight for a fourth time, don't be surprised if they put the two in padded rooms beforehand.

UFC 133, which marks the promotion's return to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania for the first time since UFC 101, has easily been the most cursed card in recent memory.

The original main event was Jon Jones vs. Rashad Evans for the light heavyweight title. Jones pulled out, though, with an ailing thumb/wrist and was replaced by Phil Davis. That lasted until about three weeks from fight night when Davis suffered a knee injury and was replaced by Tito Ortiz.

Then the co-main event of the evening, Rich Franklin vs. Antonio Rogerio Nogueira was scrapped thanks to the latter busting up his shoulder. Alexander Gustafsson was offered up as a replacement but Franklin said no and poof, there goes another one.

Jose Aldo vs. Chad Mendes was also initially rumored for this card but an injury kept "Scarface" from defending his title until Oct. 8. He'll now take on Kenny Florian because Mendes decided to, thank god, stay on the card and fight Rani Yahya.

Michael McDonald and Nick Pace both exited the card for various reasons, as well.

Oh, I forgot one more. Vladimir Matyushenko suffered an injury and was forced out of his contest against the previously mentioned Gustafsson, who will now take on Matt Hamill.

So, yeah -- cursed.

                                                                                                                                                                                                               

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