Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira To Meet Dave Herman At UFC 153 In Brazil

Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira (33-7-1, 1 NC) will make his Octagon return in his home country of Brazil next month as he meets heavyweight slugger Dave Herman (21-4) at UFC 153.

Guilherme Cruz of Tatame.com first reported the bout on Wednesday. 

UFC 153 takes place on October 13 at the HSBC Arena in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. The event was scheduled to be headlined by a featherweight title clash between reigning champ Jose Aldo and ex-lightweight titleholder Frankie Edgar, however, Aldo was forced from the bout after being involved in a motorcycle accident. Co-main event fighter Quinton "Rampage" Jackson was also forced from his clash with Glover Teixeira due to injury.

UFC officials have yet to announce a new main event for the fall card.

Nogueira will return to action for the first time since suffering a broken arm at the hands of Frank Mir last December. The former PRIDE heavyweight champ was expected to return against Cheick Kongo at July's UFC 149, however, the aforementioned injury had not healed in time.

Herman too will look to get back on the winning track after experiencing back-to-back losses to Stefan Struve and Roy Nelson respectively. In his most recent outing, "Pee Wee" was knocked out by Nelson just 51-seconds into their match at UFC 146. 

(Pictured: Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira)