UFC 98 features a light heavyweight title fight between current champion, Rashad Evans and Lyoto Machida.

Machida's spot was suppose to be held by Quinton ‘Rampage' Jackson but due to the short turnaround from UFC 96 to UFC 98 Jackson declined the fight. Now there are reports that Quinton Rampage Jackson will fight for the light heavyweight title later this summer. Is this the next chapter in the short turnaround saga?

Remember UFC 96 was rumored to feature a title bout between Rashad Evans and Quinton Jackson. But Evans was unwilling to fight due to a short turnaround after UFC 92. Both Jackson and Evans fought on that card but Jackson won with a early first round knockout while Evans fought three tough rounds with Forrest Griffin. Thus Evans elected to pass on the UFC 96 main event. That gave UFC fans  Keith Jardine vs. Jackson. 

Then news broke that the Mir-Lesnar match would be moved out of UFC 98 due to Frank Mir suffering a knee injury. This put Jackson in a difficult position. If he won his bout with Keith Jardine he would be given a title shot, but would have a short turnaround before the title fight. In the end Rampage elected to pass on the title fight.

UFC 98 will take place May 23rd, giving the victor of Machida-Evans about two and half months to prepare for Jackson.  

With Evans previous history at avoiding short turnarounds does this mean the UFC is assuming Lyoto Machida will win?

There is another option, as an astute reader at bloodyelbow.com points out, perhaps when they say ‘summer' they mean September. After all, there are currently two UFC pay-per views in the month of August and no main event rumored for a September card.