Tom DeBlass
After losing his Octagon debut as a light heavyweight, New Jersey fighter Tom DeBlass (7-1) will drop to middleweight for his next fight and will reportedly face Riki ‘Killer Bee’ Fukuda (18-6) at the upcoming UFC on FUEL TV 6 event.
Verbal agreements were reported to theScore.com earlier today, with the pair expected to fight on the Facebook portion of the card.
UFC on FUEL TV 6 (UFC on FUEL TV: Le vs. Franklin) is expected to take place on November 10, 2012 at the CotaiArena in Macau, China. This will be the UFC’s first trip to China, with a middleweight fight between Cung Le and Rich Franklin set to headline.
DeBlass stepped in for an injured Jörgen Kruth this past April at UFC on FUEL TV 2, facing French striker Cyrille Diabate at the Swedish show. Despite a strong first round, the 12-day notice fight took it’s toll as DeBlass who tired as the fight wore on, losing the match by majority decision. The loss was DeBlass’ first, ending a seven fight win streak. He was then scheduled to face Nick Penner this past July at UFC on FUEL TV 4 but was pulled after Penner became injured.
Fukuda will look to improve on his 1-2 Octagon record, having lost a unanimous decision to Cypriot fighter Constantinos Philippou last July at UFC 148. Previous to the match, Fukuda won a decision over Steve Cantwell at UFC 144 and was beaten by decision versus Nick Ring at UFC 127 in the Japanese fighters debut. The loss to Ring ended a seven fight win streak for Fukuda, who vacated the DEEP middleweight title to join the UFC.