Report: Tibau injured, Aurelio steps in to face Franca at UFC 90
September 1, 2008 by Adam Morgan
Sherdog is reporting that Gleison Tibau has had to pull out of his scheduled fight with Hermes Franca at UFC 90 due to a shoulder injury. Stepping in for the injured Tibau is his American Top Team teammate, Marcus Aurelio.
Aurelio is most recently coming off a defeat to lightweight title contender Tyson Griffin at UFC 86 and is currently 2-2 in the UFC after a very successful careeer in the PRIDE organization. He’ll be looking to get past the .500 mark in the UFC in this bout against former ATT training partner Franca.
“It doesn’t matter who I fight; it’s a big challenge,” Franca is quoted telling Sherdog. “It is what it is. We’re both professionals. I think it’s better for me. I know his game really well. I’ve never trained with Gleison before.”
Franca is coming off a unanimous decision loss to Frankie Edgar at UFC Fight Night 14 in what was considered the Fight of the Night. That was Franca’s first fight back in over a year since being suspended for testing positive for steroids following his loss to Sean Sherk in July of 2007 at UFC 73.
Huge fight for both fighters Aurelio and Franca are in need of a win..Aurelio if i’m not mistaken has one more fight on his contract so a big win is a must…And for Franca I’m a big fan cause he always puts on a good show and never quit attitude makes him someone the UFC would keep around even if he losses..
This is probably better for Franca, I think Tibau would have controlled him with his size. It should be a great ground match up, I still give the edge to Aurelio. I like this matchup better
agreed RUSH..
i think Tibau/Franca would’ve been Tibau taking Franca down repeatedly and gassing him until it’s no longer a competition..
i like this fight a little bit more..
the ground aspect got a little better..
and the chances of Franca winning got a little bit better
soory rich s. if you think franca’s chances got better ur wrong. now we can all agree that franca’s best chance is to get it on the ground and use bjj, it’s his best attribute. the question is this though, how is he gonna try and submit the man that gave him his black belt? look it up aurelio was the one who presented it to him.