Photo via UFC.com
Ultimate Fighting Championship officials confirmed a welterweight matchup between Jake ‘The Juggernaught’ Ellenberger (26-5) and Diego ‘The Dream’ Sanchez (23-4) on Tuesday, for a previously unannounced event on FUEL TV.
“A potential fight of the night candidate has been verbally agreed to as Martin ‘The Hitman’ Kampmann will face Thiago ‘Pit Bull’ Alves in a welterweight match early next year,” confirmed UFC president Dana White today.
The event will be aired on the FX Network in early March of next year.
Update: Then from Tuesday’s late night announcement at UFC.com:
The UFC’s first fight card to be broadcast on FUEL TV has been announced for February 15th in Omaha, Nebraska, UFC president Dana White confirmed today.
The main event for this card has been verbally agreed to as top-five ranked Jake ‘The Juggernaut’ Ellenberger takes on Ultimate Fighter winner Diego ‘The Dream” Sanchez in a three-round welterweight bout.
International broadcast partners for this event will be announced in the coming months.
The event marks the first event on FUEL TV for the UFC and is expected to take place on February 15th at the CeturyLink Center in Omaha, Nebraska.
Ellenberger is coming off a devastating knockout of former Strikeforce middleweight champ Jake Shields. ‘The Juggernaut’ finished the former No. 1 welterweight contender by TKO in the first minute of their UFC Fight Night 25 headlining bout this past September. The win was Ellenberger’s fifth straight and puts him at 10-1 over his last eleven matches.
Sanchez had been scheduled to face Matt Hughes at UFC 135 in September but a broken hand forced him out of the fight. ‘The Dream’ has since been sidelined because of the injury with an expected return sometime in the new year, which will now apparently be March. Sanchez has won his last two, earning decision victories against Martin Kampmann in their $160,000 “Fight of the Night” bonus bout last March, and against Paulo Thiago at UFC 121 a year ago.
I think this could be another one of those “Fight of the Night” candidates with a lot of action throughout all three rounds. I feel Ellenberger holds the edge in this one, added to that he is probably a bigger fighter than Sanchez, which will all give him the edge in the end for a unanimous decision.