One day after Phil “Mr. Wonderful” Davis was forced to withdraw from his upcoming main event bout with “Suga” Rashad Evans at UFC 133, former UFC Light Heavyweight Champion Tito Ortiz has stepped in to face Evans for a second time. UFC President Dana White announced the news today.

Initial reports and comments from White suggested that another former UFC champion, Lyoto “The Dragon” Machida, would be rematching Evans on the card. However, Machida opted against taking on the short-notice fight and Ortiz will now enter the bout with less than four weeks to prepare.

Ortiz (16-8-1) and Evans (15-1-1) first faced off in a close fight at UFC 73 four years ago. The bout was ruled a Unanimous Draw after Ortiz was docked one point in the second round for grabbing the cage. Had he not incurred the deduction, Ortiz would have won the fight on the judges’ scorecards. Instead, he would go on to lose his next three fights and was most recently saved from the UFC cut list after submitting top contender Ryan “Darth” Bader at UFC 132 earlier this month.

Now stepping in on short notice, Ortiz will have a legitimate chance to get back into title contendership at 205 pounds if he is able to defeat Evans, who has not fought in over a year due to injuries and fight cancellations. Evans has won back-to-back fights over Thiago Silva and Quinton “Rampage” Jackson since suffering his lone defeat – a second-round knockout loss to Machida – at UFC 98 in May 2009.

UFC 133 takes place on August 6th at the Wells Fargo Center in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

UFC 133 Fight Card (to date; subject to change):

– “Suga” Rashad Evans vs “The Huntington Beach Bad Boy” Tito Ortiz
– Rich “Ace” Franklin vs Antonio Rogerio “Minotoro” Nogueira
– Vitor “The Phenom” Belfort vs Yoshihiro Akiyama
– Jorge “El Conquistador” Rivera vs Alessio “Legionarius” Sakara
– Rory “The Waterboy” MacDonald vs Mike “Quicksand” Pyle

– Alexander “The Mauler” Gustafsson vs Vladimir “The Janitor” Matyushenko
– Chad “Money” Mendes vs Rani Yahya

– Brian “Bad Boy” Ebersole vs Dennis “Superman” Hallman
– “The Pride of El Salvador” Ivan Menjivar vs Nick Pace
– Johnny Hendricks vs Mike Pierce
– Mike Brown vs Nam Phan
– Rafael “Sapo” Natal vs Constantinos Philippou

(Photo Credit: Sherdog.com)