Featherweight Daniel Pineda Replaces Injured George Roop, Faces ‘Pato’ Carvalho at UFC 149

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Two weeks after a featherweight headliner between Jose Aldo and Erik Koch was scratched from the card, UFC 149 has seen another 145-pound contest altered due to injury.

George Roop has been forced to withdraw from his planned pairing with Antonio Carvalho, the UFC announced Monday. “Pato” will now face former Legacy Fighting Championship titlist Daniel Pineda (Pictured) at the July 21 event, which takes place at Scotiabank Saddledome and marks the Las Vegas-based promotion’s first visit to Calgary, Alberta.

In light of Aldo’s injury, the evening’s pay-per-view broadcast will now be headlined by an interim bantamweight title collision between ex-WEC featherweight champ Urijah Faber and surging Brazilian Renan Barao.

Pineda, 26, joined the UFC in January on the strength of a five-fight winning streak and maintained his momentum by dispatching fellow newcomer Pat Schilling with a rear-naked choke in just 97. “The Pit” followed that performance with another win in March, finishing Mackens Semerzier with a triangle-armbar at UFC on FX 2 before falling to Mike Thomas Brown one month ago at UFC 146.

Carvalho, 33, had a three-fight winning streak snapped in his UFC debut this past January in a unanimous decision loss to Felipe Arantes at UFC 142. The Canadian owns notable career wins over Japanese standouts Takeshi Inoue and Rumina Sato, as well as former Shooto and Sengoku champion Hatsu Hioki. Carvalho’s most recent win came just over one year ago, when he outpointed two-time UFC vet Douglas Evans at Score Fighting Series 1 in Ontario.