A battle between welterweight fringe contenders Erick Silva and Dong Hyun Kim has been added to the UFC Fight Night 29 fight card.
Guilherme Cruz of MMAFighting.com confirmed the matchup with Silva’s coach, Josuel Distak.
Silva’s climb toward the top of the 170-pound division was slowed with a loss to UFC veteran Jon Fitch. However, he recently bounced back with a submission win over Jason High. An equally impressive victory over Kim would put the 29-year-old Brazilian back in position to compete against a top-10 welterweight.
Undefeated in five official UFC bouts, Kim was on his way toward title contention heading into a July 2011 bout with Carlos Condit. A flying knee from the “Natural Born Killer” led to Kim losing twice across three fights, though. Now, Kim is back on the right track with back-to-back wins and could catapult himself into a big fight by beating Silva.
Kim has been criticized for his methodical grappling in the past, but Silva showed he has the ability to make this matchup exciting by earning Fight of the Night honors against a somewhat similar opponent in Fitch.
Scheduled to be held on Oct. 9, UFC Fight Night 29 will be held in a Brazilian city to be determined. The event fight card currently includes:
- Erick Silva vs. Dong Hyun Kim
- Thiago Silva vs. Matt Hamill
- Rony Jason vs. Jeremy Stephens
Sean Smith is a Featured MMA Columnist for Bleacher Report who has also had work promoted on UFC.com and TheMMACorner.com. Follow on Twitter @SeanSmithMMA.
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