News of the match-up was reported by the UFC.

Escudero, the Ultimate Fighter Season 8 champ, is currently on his second stint with the UFC. After being cut in late 2010 Escudero posted a 5-1 mark to earn another chance inside the Octagon. However, he came up short in his return, falling by decision to Jacob Volkmann at UFC 141.

Danzig lost to Matt Wiman this past October in a bout that earned “Fight of the Night” honors. He is 20-9 in his career, but just 4-5 in the UFC and 2-2 in his past four. On his Twitter account, Danzig confirmed the bout, posting, “Just signed to fight in March. Opponent is tough as hell, but they all are. Efrain Escudero, March 24, Montreal.”

UFC 145 takes place March 24 from the Bell Centre in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. No main event for the show has been designated to date but the lineup is set to include appearances from regional stars like Mark Bocek, Rory MacDonald, and Mark Hominick.

PHOTO CREDIT – UFC

According to the UFC, Danzig and Wiman will face off at UFC Live 6 at some point in October though the actual date and location of the event haven’t been officially announced.

The loss was the only blemish on Danzig’s record in 2010 with wins over Justin Buchholz and Joe Stevenson in his pair of other Octagon appearances. The 31-year old holds an overall record of 20-8-1 with four victories in the UFC including a submission of polished BJJer Mark Bocek.

While his health has kept Danzig out of the ring since his December knockout of Stevenson, “Handsome” Matt has been more active including a hard-fought decision to Dennis Siver earlier this month at UFC 132. The 13-6 Wiman has gone 7-3 since his stint on TUF 5 with successful showings in the Octagon against Michihiro Omigawa, Thiago Tavares, and Cole Miller.

More UFC Live 6 match-ups are expected to be announced in the coming weeks.

PHOTO CREDIT – UFC

News of the cancellation was first reported by MMAWeekly where specifics were scarce in terms of the exact nature of Danzig’s injury or expected recovery time.

The 20-8-1 Danzig’s current condition means he will have been out of action for more than six months whenever he returns to the Octagon. He was last seen knocking out Joe Stevenson at UFC 124 a little less than two minutes into their bout, the fifth strike-based stoppage of the 31-year old’s career.

UPDATE: Stepping in for the injured Danzig will be Vagner Rocha, a 6-1 BJJ blackbelt making his UFC debut after appearances in Strikeforce and Bellator.

Comparably, “Cowboy” Cerrone is coming off a trio consecutive wins including back-to-back submissions of Chris Horodecki and Paul Kelly in his most recent outings.

Today’s news marks yet another instance of promotional officials having to reshuffle the UFC 131 deck, as the diminished health of scheduled participants has already affected a number of bouts including the previous headliner between Brock Lesnar and Junior dos Santos, as well as other fights involving Krzysztof Soszynski, Jesse Bongfeldt, and Dustin Poirier.

PHOTO CREDIT – UFC

The 20-8-1 Danzig is coming off a two-minute knockout of fellow Ultimate Fighter champ Joe Stevenson at UFC 124 after losing four of five prior to the crucial victory. His overall experience and grappling prowess should pose an interesting challenge for Cerrone with ten wins by way of submission and only a single knockout loss in nearly thirty professional fights.

His opponent, Cerrone, won his UFC debut last month as the result of a fight-ending Rear-Naked Choke against Paul Kelly. He is 14-3 overall in his career and has emerged with his hands raised the last three times he’s stepped into the cage including a submission of Chris Horodecki and Unanimous Decision over Jamie Varner in WEC.

The other pair of prodigious 155-pounders should join their peers in wowing onlookers as Edwards (40-16-1) and Stout (16-6-1) are both on hot streaks and love to stand. Edwards has won his last three fights including a pair of victories in the Octagon while Stout has found success in three of his previous four outings. Also notable, the 26-year old hasn’t been finished in nearly five years since being submitted by Ken Florian at the Ultimate Fighter 3 Finale.

Other fights on the UFC 131 card include Florian vs. Diego Nunes, Dustin Poirier vs. Rani Yahya, and Mark Munoz vs. Demian Maia.

PHOTO CREDIT – ZUFFA

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The bout was previously confirmed to MMAWeekly.com by sources close to the fight.

Both men will be looking to bounce back from recent defeats in the octagon in a match-up where the loser could very likely be sent on a short vacation from the UFC.

Danzig put together two victories in the UFC after being crowned the winner of the sixth season of The Ultimate Fighter, but has fallen short in his last two trips to the cage against Clay Guida, and most recently Josh Neer in February. The twenty nine year old Xtreme Couture fighter finds his back against the wall at UFC 100 as a third consecutive loss would make his future in the UFC extremely questionable.

Miller has gone 2-1 since he joined the UFC in the latter portion of 2008 with wins over David Baron and Matt Wiman before falling short in his third trip to the octagon against the highly rated Gray Maynard. Miller’s only other loss in his fifteen fight career came at the hands of Frankie Edgar in November of 2006.

A full list of the expected bouts for UFC 100 are below.

Brock Lesnar vs. Frank Mir
Georges St. Pierre vs. Thiago Alves
Dan Henderson vs. Michael Bisping
Mark Coleman vs. Stephan Bonnar
Jon Fitch vs. Paulo Thiago
Yoshihiro Akiyama vs. Alan Belcher
Dong Hyun Kim vs. Jonathan Goulet
Mac Danzig vs. Jim Miller
Jon Jones vs. Jake O’Brien
CB Dollaway vs. Tom Lawlor
Matt Grice vs. Shannon Gugerty

FiveOuncesOfPain.com confirmed the Feb. 7 UFC Fight Night event in a report last week. A venue has not yet been determined.

Danzig, a former PRIDE veteran, won the TUF 6 welterweight tournament following a first round submission over fellow finalist Tommy Speer. Danzig then returned at UFC 83 in April, where he submitted jiu-jitsu black belt Mark Bocek with a rear naked choke at 3:48 of round 3.

Danzig’s most recent fight took place at UFC Fight Night 15 in September, where he lost a unanimous decision to Clay Guida. The defeat dropped Danzig’s record to 18-5-1.

He will look to get back on the winning track against Neer, a three-time UFC veteran who returned to the promotion at UFC Fight Night 13 in April, where he recorded a unanimous decision victory over Din Thomas. Neer, 24-7-1, also fought at UFC Fight Night 15, where he lost in the night’s main event via split decision against season five winner from “The Ultimate Fighter,” .

Danzig was a known commodity in the MMA world before going on TUF and now he’s a household name. With a strong grappling background, serviceable standup, and a tenacity that is often unrivaled, he is looking to climb the lightweight ranks by defeating Clay Guida. Danzig is coming off back-to-back wins over Tommy Speer and Mark Bocek. What’s impressive about these two victories is the fact that Danzig was able to take on a much larger opponent than him in Tommy Speer and choke him out in a single round and that Danzig was able to choke out a BJJ black belt in his fight against Bocek.

There’s a lot to like about Danzig. His ground game is obviously a strength as most of his victories come via submission. His wrestling is solid, his standup is more than serviceable, and he’s an extremely tough kid. All of those things combined make for a pretty nasty competitor at 155 lbs. in the UFC. One of the biggest areas where Danzig could improve, however, is his standup. Hayato Sakurai ate Danzig up on the feet during their fight at PRIDE 33. Even though Danzig lasted a long time in the fight, Sakurai was never in trouble and took his time taking Danzig apart with leg kicks and eventually dropped him with a huge right hand. Danzig’s chin is also questionable as well as he took several shots from Sakurai that dropped him during their fight. However, I don’t think the standup will be an issue during the fight with Guida as I feel that the two are roughly equal on the feet.

Clay Guida, on the other hand, lives and breathes wrestling, ground and pound, and a high motor. It’s his trademark. His standup is good but his wrestling and conditioning is where Guida makes his money. This often can be a blessing and a curse. When Guida can’t take someone down and pound away at them then he is often left without a backup plan to attack. And when he does get people on the ground, in a position to finish them, he is often unable to do so. Case in point: Roger Huerta. Guida had Roger Huerta on the edge of defeat with a huge shot but was unable to finish him with strong ground and pound. Instead Guida just put together a flurry of useless punches that scored points but didn’t do enough damage to stop Huerta. And what happened after that? Huerta submitted him with a rear naked choke at the beginning of round three. Same thing happend in his loss to Tyson Griffin. Many believed that Guida had won the fight but he left it up to the judges. The judges ruled in favor of Griffin. Guida has not been able to finish high caliber lightweights.

I think this is where Danzig’s main advantage will be. I expect Danzig to be on his back at some points during the fight. I expect him to eat some punishment from Guida. But I also expect him to weather the storm, hang around, and eventually submit Guida. There are holes in both guys’ game. No one’s a perfect fighter. But I believe Guida’s proven time and time again that he has an inability to finish higher caliber fighters. He’s proven he can finish the Sammy Schiavo’s of the world but he hasn’t yet been able to finish the high level of opponent that he needs to take the next step.

This should be one hell of a scrap. Both guys are very tough, both like to scrap, scramble, and claw their way to victories. Guida’s conditioning should be very good, as it always is, and this will be one of Danzig’s toughest tests to date. Outside of Sakurai I don’t think he’s faced a tougher opponent. Guida is a very, very good opponent and it won’t surprise me if he’s able to win. But if I had to choose, and I do, I think he lets Danzig hang around way too long and gets submitted sometime in the third round.

For those that don’t know, Tucker Max was blogging about his drunken, womanizing exploits before the phrase “blogging” even existed.  He turned his stories into a book deal and now is filming a movie based on his book/stories/life by the title “I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell”

FiveOuncesofPain.com is the first MMA site to bring you these pics, as they were leaked to us by a source on set.  And next week we’ll be giving away signed copies of Tucker Max’s book “I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell”.

** 7 more pictures after the jump **