Lewis-Browne moved from Brooklyn card to UFC Halifax main event
The UFC appears to have salvaged its upcoming Canadian card.
Initially scheduled to tangle at UFC 208, heavyweights Derrick Lewis and Travis Browne will now square off in the main event of UFC Fight Night 105 - scheduled for Feb. 19 in Halifax, Nova Scotia - the promotion confirmed after multiple reports surfaced Monday afternoon.
Fellow behemoths Junior dos Santos and Stefan Struve were previously set to headline the event in a rematch, but the bout was scrapped after Struve suffered a torn shoulder labrum and the promotion found itself short on potential replacements, temporarily relegating the card to a state of limbo.
A winner of five straight, the 31-year-old Lewis gets his second straight top billing after scoring a comeback fourth-round TKO over Shamil Abdurakhimov in the main event of UFC Fight Night 102 in Albany this past December. "The Black Beast" has finished all but one of his eight UFC conquests by knockout.
Browne, on the other hand, finds himself on the longest losing skid of his once promising career, having dropped two straight and three of his last four. After suffering a beatdown at the hands of Cain Velasquez at UFC 200, the ninth-ranked Browne fell to Fabricio Werdum by unanimous decision for the second time in his last outing this past September.
The Halifax event has also been bolstered by a middleweight bout between divisional newcomer Johny Hendricks and Hector Lombard, who've lost three and two straight, respectively.