(A pretty solid metaphor for their respective careers right now.)

With the UFC still in the lurch after Phil Davis’s injury wrecked yet another UFC main event, Tito Ortiz has done the unthinkable — he’s decided to become a team player. After initially refusing to step up as Rashad Evans‘s replacement opponent at UFC 133, Ortiz has now agreed to take the fight, which will come just five weeks after his shock upset of Ryan Bader at UFC 132. Oddly enough, Tito’s change-of-heart came after Lyoto Machida accepted the fight, then lost the opportunity during negotiations. We’ll let Dana White tell the story, via MMAJunkie:

“Machida accepted the fight. We knew for a couple days this was going down, and Machida accepted the fight. Then when we called back and said, ‘OK, we’re going to make this fight,’ Machida’s people came back and said, ‘We’ll tell you what. You pay us what you pay Anderson Silva, and we’ll take the fight.’ This was after they had already agreed to take the fight.

I said, ‘Are you [expletive] kidding me? I’ll tell you what. You tell Machida he achieves what [expletive] Anderson Silva has achieved, then maybe he’ll make Anderson Silva money. Have a nice day.’…

Tito turned it down, and then Tito called back and said, ‘Did you get the fight yet?’ I said, ‘Nope.’ He goes, ‘Let me think about it. Let me talk to my team, and I’ll call you back tomorrow.’ This was Tuesday night…

Tito stepped up to the plate. It’s [expletive] weird here. It’s like I’m dealing with a new person. I like it. I like the new Tito. The storyline is what’s so interesting. Tito went from ‘You’re about to be cut,’ to now, if he beats Rashad Evans, he’s back in the mix. He’s back in the picture.”

The early betting lines have Evans as a 5-1 favorite over Ortiz, which seems a little inflated in light of what we just saw Ortiz accomplish earlier this month. Could the Huntington Beach Bad Boy shock the world again? And are you more interested in this rematch than the original Evans vs. Davis main event?