(Brown poses with his two primary investors in Topless Broad FC. / Photo via @IamTheImmortal)
After a poorly-timed back injury robbed him of a chance to fight Carlos Condit in December, Matt Brown will be returning to action on May 10th for UFC Fight Night 40 in Cincinnati. The UFC confirmed yesterday that Brown will headline the event against Brazilian welterweight Erick Silva, who thoroughly styled on Takenori Sato last month at UFC Fight Night 36: Machida vs. Mousasi.
Brown has put together six consecutive wins over the last two years, tying him for the fourth-longest active win streak in the UFC. While it might not be totally logical to match him up against an opponent who’s been steadily alternating between wins and losses during that same time period, you can’t really complain about a booking like this, which pretty much guarantees an insane level of action, and at least one POTN bonus being handed out.
Useless fact: Brown vs. Silva will mark the first time that Brown has competed in his home state of Ohio since his destruction of Pete Sell in March 2009, and the first time that Silva has competed outside of Brazil since his submission win against Charlie Brenneman in June 2012.
In other booking news…
UFC 173: Weidman vs. Machida (May 24th, Las Vegas) has picked up a co-main event. As first reported by the Las Vegas Review-Journal, former UFC heavyweight champ Junior Dos Santos will attempt to rebound from his latest beating at the hands of Cain Velasquez when he faces Stipe Miocic. The UFC originally wanted to match Dos Santos up with Alistair Overeem, but the ‘Reem wasn’t healthy enough to accept the fight.
Miocic is riding back-to-back wins against Roy Nelson and Gabriel Gonzaga, both of whom he defeated by unanimous decision. The Croatian-American contender may not be as big a star as Overeem, but he’s hungry enough to give Dos Santos a tough fight…as long as he can avoid eating any spinning heel kicks.
If you’ve got any predictions, please share them with the class.