[wolf137]

Jon Jones was not the first choice to sub for Rashad Evans...

Before Jon Jones scored the UFC 128 title fight with Mauricio "Shogun" Rua, Quinton "Rampage" Jackson was offered the bout. Rampage turned it down.

The March 19th slot opened this past weekend when Rashad Evans's knee injury forced him out of the fight, which takes place in Newark, NJ.

Jackson is still officially scheduled to fight Thiago Silva in the co-headliner of May's UFC 130.

The reason Jackson turned down the title fight wasn't immediately clear.

However, Jackson previously has talked about wanting to avenge a 2005 loss to Rua in PRIDE.

Just hours before UFC 126 began Saturday in Las Vegas, UFC president Dana White learned that Evans will be out six to eight weeks with a strained ligament in his knee.

With Evans (15-1 MMA, 10-1-1 UFC) and Jackson (31-8 MMA, 6-2 UFC) out, Rua (19-4 MMA, 3-2 UFC) then agreed to a proposed fight with Jones (12-1 MMA, 6-1 UFC) right before his UFC 126 main-card bout with Ryan Bader. Jones was on board right after the match was over.

"We did the deal literally, I don't know if you saw, but earlier, we told 'Shogun' that, 'Hey, listen, if this kid wins, we want to put him in there for the fight,'" White said after UFC 126. "We talked for a while about it. Right before Jones and Bader came out, him and his team accepted the fight."