Josh Koscheck to face Erick Silva in UFC Fight Night Rio co-main event

The UFC has found a replacement opponent for Erick Silva after Ben Saunders was forced out of the UFC Fight Night Rio co-main event with an undisclosed injury. While Ben Henderson (jokingly?) threw his name in the ring as a potential replacement on just two weeks notice, the gig is apparently going to Josh Koscheck. Combate reports that Koscheck (17-9) will step in on the heels of his 2nd round submission loss to Jake Ellenberger just a week ago at UFC 184.

There are two points of discussion worth bringing up ahead of this new fight. Koscheck was only given a 7 day medical suspension by the CSAC after the Ellenberger loss, which didn't have much in the way of damage and the highlight was Koscheck getting choked out until he drooled. Secondly, Koscheck made it clear that he wanted to finish out his UFC contract and retire in the Octagon. The Ellenberger fight was the penultimate one on his current contract, so we could very well be looking at Josh Koscheck's swan song in just a fortnight's time.

Silva (17-5, 1 NC) has yet to win consecutive fights in the UFC. The closest the 31-year-old has come to achieving that was a KO win in his Octagon debut and then a DQ loss to Carlo Prater after his attempts to finish the fight were deemed to be illegal strikes to the back of the head. He's surely going to be a massive favorite over Koscheck, who is on a 4 fight losing streak, but should Koscheck pull off the upset it could be the most damaging loss of Silva's career.

UFC Fight Night in Rio de Janeiro features a main event between welterweights Demian Maia and Ryan LaFlare. The night's main card airs on Fox Sports 1.