Author: MMA Fighting Newswire

John Makdessi will look for his third straight UFC win when he squares off against Renee Forte in a lightweight bout at UFC 165 on Sept. 21 at the Air Canada Centre in Toronto, UFC officials announced Tuesday.

Makdessi was supposed to fight Edson Barboza at UFC 162, but he dropped out because of an injury. The Canadian has won four of his six UFC fights in his career.

Forte defeated Terry Etim via unanimous decision at the UFC on FUEL TV event on Feb. 16 in his last trip to the Octagon. He is 1-1 in his UFC career.

UFC 165 is headlined by Jon Jones‘ UFC light heavyweight title defense against Alexander Gustafsson.

The UFC 165 fight card currently is:
Jon Jones vs. Alexander Gustafsson
Renan Barao vs. Eddie Wineland
Khabib Nurmagomedov vs. Pat Healy
Mike Ricci vs. Myles Jury
Ivan Menjivar vs. Norifumi Yamamoto
John Makdessi vs. Renee Forte
Brendan Schaub vs. Matt Mitrione
Nandor Guelmino vs. Daniel Omielanczuk
Chris Clements vs. Stephen Thompson
Mark Bocek vs. Michel Prazeres
Mitch Gagnon vs. Dustin Kimura

MMA Fighting has the UFC on FOX 8 fight card for next Saturday’s Johnson vs. Moraga fight card at the KeyArena in Seattle, Wash.

In the main event, Demetrious Johnson will defend his UFC flyweight title against John Moraga. Rory MacDonald will square off against Jake Ellenberger in the co-main event.

Check out the UFC on FOX 8 fight card below.

Main card (FOX at 8 p.m. ET)
Demetrious Johnson vs. John Moraga
Rory MacDonald vs. Jake Ellenberger
Robbie Lawler vs. Bobby Voelker
Liz Carmouche vs. Jessica Andrade

Undercard (FX at 5 p.m. ET)
Michael Chiesa vs. Jorge Masvidal
Danny Castillo vs. Tim Means
Mac Danzig vs. Melvin Guillard
Yves Edwards vs. Daron Cruickshank
Ed Herman vs. Trevor Smith
Julie Kedzie vs. Germaine de Randamie

Undercard (Facebook at 4 p.m. ET)
Aaron Riley vs. Justin Salas
John Albert vs. Yaotzin Meza

It’s good to be the champ. UFC middleweight champion Chris Weidman was officially honored on “Chris Weidman day” at the Coral House on Long Island, N.Y., on Wednesday afternoon. Check out the video above.

A light heavyweight contest between Anthony Johnson and Mike Kyle will serve as the main event for World Series of Fighting 5 at Revel Casino Hotel in Atlantic City, N.J. on Sept. 14, WSOF officials announced Monday.

Johnson, who has won two fights with the organization, defeated Andrei Arlovski in his heavyweight debut at WSOF 2 this past March. The former UFC fighter has won his past five fights overall.

Kyle will be making his debut for the World Series of Fighting. He is 2-2 with one no-contest in his past five fights.

The show will be televised on the NBC Sports Network at 9 p.m. ET.

Michael Bisping and Mark Munoz have verbally agreed to square off against each other in a middleweight showdown on Oct. 26 in Manchester, England, sources have told MMA Fighting’s Ariel Helwani.

It will be the main event for the UFC show that doesn’t have a name yet. MMA Junkie was the first to report of the potential fight.

Munoz recently defeated Tim Boetsch via unanimous decision at UFC 162 on July 6. It was his first fight in nearly a year. He has won five of his past six fights.

Bisping defeated Alan Belcher via technical decision (unanimous) at UFC 159 on April 27, 2013. He has won three of his past five fights.

It will be Bisping’s third UFC fight in Manchester, England, and his first since he defeated Denis Kang at UFC 105 via second-round TKO on Nov. 14, 2009.

Poll

Who do you think will win fight?

• 
  Michael Bisping
• 
  Mark Munoz

  499 votes | Results

TJ Grant didn’t waste much time firing back at “conspiracy theorists” after it was announced his injury opened the door for a rematch between Benson Henderson and Anthony Pettis at UFC 164 on Aug. 31.

Grant admitted he recently suffered a concussion during bjj class.

Thanks everyone for your concerns. I am healing from a concussion I suffered in BJJ of all things. I hope to be back training very soon.

— TJ Grant (@TJ_Grant) July 12, 2013

Sorry all you conspiracy theorists. @danawhite / @ufc did not and could not pay me any amount of money to step aside.

— T.J. Grant (@TJ_Grant) July 12, 2013