Although the bout has been ‘out of the bag’ for sometime now, the UFC confirmed today that Kenny Florian will take on former Pride champion Takanori Gomi, at the promotion’s upcoming March 31st Fight Night 21 card. Now, if you’re a newbie to the sport and are thinking ‘who the hell is Gomi’, it’s probably best to keep that question to yourself. Just keep an eye out for Spike’s new “Best of Pride” series, and you’ll find out why Gomi had one of the biggest nuthugging legion of fans the sport has ever seen. It’s umm, 100% likely that the show will be running some of Gomi’s finest moments (and there’s plenty) as we head towards the end of March.
That’s not to say that Gomi doesn’t still have a lot of fans, but after losses to Nick Diaz (yeah, yeah, no-contest nonsense aside), Sergey Golyaev (cue Google search) and Satoru “Where’s my ACL?” Kitaoka, the “Fireball Kid’s” stock isn’t exactly at an all time high. Still, Gomi can punch effin hard and is a decent wrestler, so, the potential for a great throwdown with Ken Flo is definitely there.
The UFC has also announced that it will do its best job of impersonating the number 10 at Fight Night 21, by matching up its lankiest heavyweight against its fattest (thus the image of ten…) Yup, 6’11 tall Stefan “Beanpole” Struve is going to face 6’0, 260lb. plus Roy “Big Country” Nelson. Although Struve has only lost 3 times in over 20 fights, we’re seeing a sweaty belly crucifix in his short term future.
To see all of the confirmed bouts for the March 31st Fight Night 21 card, which will take place in Charlotte, NC, head here.