Report: Evans vs. Cormier to stay intact, expected to be re-booked for UFC 172 in Baltimore

Looks like Chael Sonnen is staying put.

So too, is every other available light heavyweight, apparently, as Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) has no intention of Frankensteining the UFC 170 fight card with whatever spare bodies are strewn about the lab floor.

That's because the Rashad Evans vs. Daniel Cormier fight -- torpedoed after "Suga" came up lame in practice -- is less than two weeks away, scheduled for the Mandalay Bay Events Center in Las Vegas, Nevada, on Feb. 22, 2014.

And Cormier is one of the best fighters in all of mixed martial arts (MMA), so there is no point in having him run through a late replacement on a pay-per-view (PPV) when he can just as easily be shifted to UFC 172 in April, a nice addition to a fight card already populated with some of the world's finest 205 pounders.

Like Jon Jones, Glover Teixeira, Phil Davis and Anthony Johnson (see the full line up here).

@lorenzofertitta tells me he wants to keep @SugaRashadEvans Cormier fight intact. So with Evans injured, fight moving to April, off Feb. 22.

— Lance Pugmire (@latimespugmire) February 13, 2014

Cormier (13-0) was campaigning for a new opponent just as soon as word hit that Evans was felled by a leg injury. While "The American Gangster" was quick to accept, his coaching duties and subsequent fight against Wanderlei Silva at UFC 173 pretty much eliminated him from the discussion.

But it kept the Twitterverse talking.

If the promotion follows through with its plans to shift Evans vs. Cormier to UFC 172, it still leaves a rather sizable hole to fill on the UFC 170 fight card (see it here), headlined by a Ronda Rousey vs. Sara McMann championship contest. Expect one of the FOX Sports 1 "Prelims" bouts to earn a promotion (just not this one).

For more on this "sad" turn of events click here.