Phil Davis Meets Chad Griggs in Light Heavyweight Bout at UFC on Fox 4

Chad Griggs (Josh Hedges/UFC)

Former Strikeforce heavyweight drops down to meet Davis at 205

Phil Davis will look to rebound from the first loss of his MMA career, and he’ll do it against a recent heavyweight.

Davis has agreed to fight Chad Griggs in a light heavyweight bout at UFC on Fox 4 this summer. UFC officials on Monday announced the fight booking for the August card. Griggs just last month fought Travis Browne at heavyweight.

Davis-Griggs will be part of UFC on Fox: Stann vs. Lombard, which will take place Aug. 4 at the Staples Center in Los Angeles. Headlining the card is the UFC debut of former Bellator middleweight champion Hector Lombard, who faces middleweight contender Brian Stann. The placement of the Davis-Griggs fight was not announced.

Davis (9-1, 5-1 UFC) fought former light heavyweight champion Rashad Evans in January in the main event of UFC on Fox 2 in Chicago. Then undefeated, Davis was dominated for five rounds by Evans, losing a unanimous decision. Evans went on to get a shot at Jon Jones’ title, which he lost last month in Atlanta. Prior to his loss to Evans, Davis started his career 9-0 and his UFC career 5-0, including wins over the likes of Stann, Alexander Gustafsson, Tim Boetsch and Antonio Rogerio Nogueira.

Griggs (11-2, 0-1 UFC) entered the UFC on a six-fight winning streak that included a 3-0 mark in Strikeforce with three finishes. But that streak was snapped at UFC 145 by Travis Browne, who submitted “The Gravedigger” midway through the first round. Now he will drop down to 205 pounds – he weighed in at 228 pounds for his fight with Browne – to try things out at light heavyweight. Griggs first came to Strikeforce in 2010 to face Bobby Lashley. A massive underdog in the fight, Griggs pulled one of the year’s biggest upsets by pummeling Lashley at the end of Round 2, winning by TKO when the former WWE star couldn’t return to his corner. Griggs, a firefighter in Tucson, Ariz., has never gone to a decision in his 13-fight career and has nine of his 11 wins by knockout.

Also booked for the UFC on Fox card are fights between former light heavyweight champion Lyoto Machida and Ryan Bader; a lightweight fight between fight night bonus hawks Joe Lauzon and Terry Etim; and heavyweight bouts pitting Ben Rothwell against Travis Browne and Matt Mitrione against Rob Broughton.