Stipe Miocic still wants that fight with Junior dos Santos.
The Cleveland-based heavyweight had what he thought was his potential breakthrough fight when he was scheduled to meet the former UFC heavyweight champion on May 31 in Brazil.
But dos Santos had to pull out of the bout with a broken hand, and Miocic instead went on to record a fast knockout of Fabio Maldonado, who was coming up from light heavyweight on short notice.
So with nothing else on his agenda at the moment, the 12-1 Miocic says he’d like another crack at the former champ. MMAFIghting.com‘s Ariel Helwani reported on Wednesday’s edition of UFC Tonight that Miocic still wants to the fight.
But there’s a bit of a catch: They’d like the bout to be contested in the United States. The JDS-Miocic fight was originally scheduled for UFC 173 in Las Vegas, before Miocic agreed to have the bout shifted to Brazil, where he instead ended up facing Maldonado.
That might be easier said than done, however. UFC 179 is scheduled for Curitba, Brazil on Oct. 25. There are only so many Brazilian headliners to go around, and one of them, Vitor Belfort, has just committed to fighting Chris Weidman in Las Vegas in December. No bouts have yet been announced for UFC 179.