An undisclosed injury has forced Henry Briones to pull out of his scheduled bantamweight bout against Brad Pickett at UFC Fight Night 83 and stepping up to replace Briones in the fight is Francisco Rivera.
UFC officials announced the fight change on Friday morning.
UFC Fight Night 83 will take place on February 27 from the O2 Arena in London, England and will be headlined by a middleweight bout as former UFC champion Anderson Silva returns from suspension to meet Michael Bisping.
Rivera (11-5, 1NC) is coming off a submission lost in September against John Lineker at UFC 191 and he has dropped three of his last four fights. His only win in his last four fights came in June of last year as he defeated Alex Caceres by knockout. Pickett (24-11) returned to the bantamweight division last year at UFC 189 and was defeated by Thomas Almeida. He will be looking to snap a three fight losing streak in this fight and his last win came in March of 2014.
The current UFC Fight Night 83: Silva vs. Bisping fight card is below.
Main Card: (UFC Fight Pass – 4 p.m. ET/1 p.m. PT)
Anderson Silva (34-6) vs. Michael Bisping (28-7)
Gegard Mousasi (37-6-2) vs. Thales Leites (25-5)
Tom Breese (9-0) vs. Keita Nakamura (31-6-2, 1NC)
Brad Pickett (25-11) vs. Francisco Rivera (11-5, 1NC)
Preliminary Card: (UFC Fight Pass – 12:45 p.m. ET/9:45 a.m. PT)
Mike Wilkinson (9-1) vs. Makwan Amirkhani (12-2)
David Grant (8-2) vs. Marlon Vera (7-2-1)
Scott Askham (13-2) vs. Chris Dempsey (11-3)
Arnold Allen (10-1) vs. Yaotzin Meza (21-10, 1NC)
Bradley Scott (10-3) vs. Krzysztof Jotko (16-1)
Norman Parke (22-4-1) vs. Rustam Khabilov (17-3)
Daniel Omielanczuk (17-5-1, 1NC) vs. Jarjis Danho (6-0)
Teemu Packalen (7-1) vs. Lukasz Sajewski (13-1)