An eye injury has taken long-time UFC middleweight contender Michael Bisping out of his UFC Fight Night 30 matchup with Mark Munoz, however, a replacement has been tapped immediately.

Lyoto Machida, a former UFC light heavyweight champ who was set to make his middleweight debut a week later at UFC Fight for the Troops 3, will fill in for “The Count.” ESPN broke the news on Friday.

“The Dragon” had been encouraged to test the waters at 185 pounds for the past couple years, but was apprehensive about cutting the extra 20 pounds as long as friend/Black House MMA teammate, Anderson Silva, was on top of the division.

Now that Silva lost the strap to Chris Weidman at UFC 162 in July, coupled with the fact that Machida is just 3-4 in his past seven fights, the Karate-based striker has decided to get a fresh start in a new weight class.

Meanwhile, Munoz has won five of his past six bouts, getting knocked out by Weidman at UFC on FUEL 4 last July, and bouncing back with a dominant win over Tim Boetsch, which coincidentally also took place at UFC 162.

Bisping’s manager indicates that although the fighter will not need surgery, he is expected to be on the sidelines for at least four to six months, MMA Fighting’s Ariel Helwani said.

After his most recent victory, a technical decision over Alan Belcher at UFC 159 in April, Bisping had retina surgery and has apparently suffered another setback with that same eye.

UFC Fight Night 30 takes place in Manchester, England on October 26.