MMA Junkie reported earlier today that UFC officials announced that Anthony Johnson was forced to withdraw from his June 26 bout with welterweight newcomer Nate Marquardt (31-10-2) for UFC on Versus 4.
His replacement is UFC welterweight up and comer Rick Story (13-3).
There was no rest for Story after having beat Thiago Alves at UFC 130: Rampage vs Hamill this past weekend, he will be back in the Octagon in less than a month.
Story really controlled the action against an always dangerous Alves and despite the striking prowess of Alves he even got the better of Alves in some of the striking exchanges.
Marquardt is making his welterweight debut after struggling to put together the necessary win streak to build towards his second title shot in the division. Furthermore, he struggled in fights against the larger wrestlers of the division, namely Chael Sonnen and Yushin Okami.
With the drop to 170 pounds Marquardt will probably be one of the bigger welterweights in the division with the idea being that he will probably better be able to deal with the strong grapplers in the lighter weight class.
This is obviously a big chance for Marquardt to make a mark in his welterweight debut and quest for a title shot. However, nobody has more to gain in this fight than Story who has quietly positioned himself to being on the cusp of the upper echelons of the welterweight division.
Story lost in his UFC debut at UFC 99 to John Hathaway, but since then has rattled off six straight victories. In his last three fights he has put a damper on two fellow up and comers in Dustin Hazlett and Johnny Hendricks along with the victory over Alves as mentioned earlier.
A win over Marquardt definitely puts Story on the radar for title contention and would probably be one or two fights away from fighting for UFC gold.
Carlos Condit will be fighting Dong Hyun Kim on July 2 at UFC 132 and the winner of this fight might be the perfect follow up for the winner of Maquardt vs Story and a strong case for a title shot to the winner of that could be made.
Obviously Marquardt is no pushover in his own right, having 43 professional fights to his name and always being near the top of the middleweight division. That being said, Story is a pretty decent wrestler and despite lacking the technical striking prowess of the better strikers in the division he definitely tries to make up for it by keeping the pressure on.
Marquardt is a pretty technical striker himself and the question will be whether he is able to stay away from the wrestling of Story, if yes then one could probably expect Marquardt to get the knockout or out-point Story for the decision victory.
If Story can employ the game plan he implemented so effectively against Alves for his fight with Marquardt, he might be able to grind out another victory.
In any case the fight is an excellent opportunity for both fighters, despite being at different stages in their careers, both Story and Marquardt are working towards a title shot and a win for either fighter does a lot to get them closer to that goal.
Georges St-Pierre the current welterweight champion is taking on the the Strikeforce welterweight champion Nick Diaz in October at UFC 137.
Although Diaz maybe the underdog against St-Pierre, he is probably the most complete fighter St-Pierre has fought in a while and his aggressive nature in fights is something St-Pierre hasn’t seen from an opponent in a while.
Story is aggressive in his own right so if he does get to that title shot fans of the welterweight division will be privy to two title fights where the challengers bring the fight to the champion, something that hasn’t happened in a while at welterweight.
Marquardt is good friends with St-Pierre and should he win in a few weeks it will be interesting to see how that situation unfolds. Maybe this was part of the plan, have Marquardt move down and St-Pierre move up to middleweight for a super fight showdown with middleweight champion Anderson Silva.
Leon Horne has been contributing to Bleacher Report for three years now. He focuses mainly on mixed martial arts, but he has also written about tennis, football and hockey. Just send him a message if you want to talk sports or discuss any opportunities. You can follow him on Twitter for updates
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