UFC 181 shifts Duffee-Hamilton to main card, Evans-Smith vs. Pennington to prelims

Next month’s UFC 181 event in Las Vegas has seen a lineup shift on the main card.

Heavyweight sluggers Todd Duffee (8-2 MMA, 2-1 UFC) and Anthony Hamilton (13-3 MMA, 1-1 UFC) have been promoted from the prelims onto the main card, while women’s bantamweights Ashlee Evans-Smith (3-0 MMA, 0-0 UFC) has replaced injured Holly Holm (7-0 MMA, 0-0 UFC) and Raquel Pennington (4-4 MMA, 1-1 UFC) head to the prelims.

UFC 181 takes place Dec. 6 at Mandalay Bay Events Center in Las Vegas. The main card, including a pair of title fights, airs on pay-per-view following prelims on FOX Sports 1 and UFC Fight Pass. Evans-Smith and Pennington will open up the FOX Sports 1 portion of the card.

Evans-Smith stepped in earlier this week for an injured Holly Holm. The highly anticipated UFC debut of unbeaten former pro boxer Holm had been enough to get her a slot with Pennington on the main card, but now the promotion will put the big men there, instead.

Duffee has been sidelined by Parsonage-Turner syndrome (a rare neurologic disorder) and out for about two years. The 28-year-old American Kickboxing Academy fighter is currently in his second UFC stint (the first included a UFC-record seven-second knockout of Tim Hague) and scored a TKO victory over Philip De Fries during his return fight at UFC 155 in late 2012.

He now looks for his ninth knockout in nine career wins when he meets Hamilton, a 34-year-old Team Jackson-Winkeljohn fighter who suffered a submission loss to Alexey Oleinik in his UFC debut back in June. However, the MFC vet rebounded this past month at UFC 177, where he scored a TKO win over Ruan Potts. It marked his seventh knockout in 13 career wins.

Evans-Smith turned pro in 2013 after a lengthy amateur career, and she’s 3-0 with two knockouts since then. The 27-year-old’s highest-profile win arguably came in October 2013, when she scored a ground-and-pound TKO victory over transgender fighter Fallon Fox to win a CFA tournament. Most recently, Evans-Smith knocked out Marciea Allen at WSOF 10.

Pennington made her way to the UFC as a cast member on “The Ultimate Fighter 18,” where the 26-year-old served as a member of Miesha Tate’s squad. Pennington advanced to the semifinal round of the tournament before losing to Jessica Rakoczy. Pennington made her official UFC debut on the undercard of the show’s live finale, where she downed Roxanne Modafferi by decision. She then returned at March’s UFC 171 event, where she suffered a split-decision loss to Jessica Andrade.

The latest UFC 181 card includes:

MAIN CARD (Pay-per-view, 10 p.m. ET)

• Champ Johny Hendricks vs. Robbie Lawler – for welterweight title
• Champ Anthony Pettis vs. Gilbert Melendez – for lightweight title
• Travis Browne vs. Brendan Schaub
• Todd Duffee vs. Anthony Hamilton
• Tony Ferguson vs. Abel Trujillo

PRELIMINARY CARD (FOX Sports 1, 8 p.m. ET)

• Urijah Faber vs. Francisco Rivera
• Eddie Gordon vs. Josh Samman
• Corey Anderson vs. Jonathan Wilson
• Ashlee Evans-Smith vs. Raquel Pennington

PRELIMINARY CARD (UFC Fight Pass, 7 p.m. ET)

• Matt Hobar vs. Sergio Pettis
• Clay Collard vs. Alex White

For more on UFC 181, check out the UFC Rumors section of the site.