By FCF Staff

The Ultimate Fighting Championship has announced that despite its efforts to find Rich Franklin (pictured) a new opponent, the former middleweight champ will no longer compete at the August 6^th, UFC 133 card as scheduled.

The UFC announced this weekend that Franklin’s original opponent, Antonio Rogerio Nogueira, was withdrawing from the event due to an injury. Now, not long since the injury was first confirmed, the promotion’s site is reporting that the bout will not be replaced and the middleweight tilt between Vitor Belfort and Yoshihiro Akiyama will be the new co-main-event.

A welterweight fight between Dennis Hallman and Brian Ebersole has been moved from the preliminaries to the main card.

UFC 133 will be hosted by the Wells Fargo Center in Philadelphia and will feature a light-heavyweight bout between former champs Rashad Evans and Tito Ortiz in the main event.