A heavyweight bout was added to the Ultimate Fighting Championships Memorial Day weekend event as “TUF” 10 season winner Roy ‘Big Country’ Nelson (16-7) welcomes former Strikeforce Grand Prix tournament semifinalist Antonio ‘Bigfoot’ Silva (16-3) to the Octagon as part of UFC 146.
The bout was made official by the promotion at UFC.com earlier today.
Plus, former Strikeforce heavyweight star Antonio “Bigfoot” Silva has verbally agreed to make his UFC debut against Roy “Big Country” Nelson. Silva logged wins over Andrei Arlovski, Mike Kyle and Fedor Emelianenko in Strikeforce and Nelson has wins over Brendan Schaub, Stefan Struve and Mirko Cro Cop and got Fight of the Night in his last fight against Fabricio Werdum.
UFC 146: Dos Santos vs. Overeem is expected to take place on May 26, 2012 at the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada. Another heavyweight bout headlines the show as champion Junior dos Santos defends his title for the first time when he meets Strikeforce’s last heavyweight title holder Alistair Overeem.
Nelson had been hinting at a drop to light heavyweight on his Facebook page with the support of fans but will now obviously take his next fight at heavyweight. The former “The Ultimate Fighter” winner is just 1-3 in the Octagon in his last four bouts, losing a unanimous decision to Fabricio Werdum in the Brazilian’s return to the Octagon at UFC 143. ‘Big Country’ had his last win in October of last year, finishing Mirko ‘Cro Cop’ Filipovic at UFC 137.
Silva has been talking about making his Octagon debut for some time now, he just didn’t have an opponent for that fight till now. ‘Bigfoot’ moves over from Strikeforce with the rest of the heavyweight division and was last in action in September, losing to Daniel Cormier in the World Grand Prix Heavyweight Tournament semifinal. The big Brazilian was knocked out cold late in the first round by Cormier. Previous to the loss, Silva had won three straight including the biggest win of his career, a second round TKO (doctor stoppage) of Russian legend Fedor Emelianenko in February 2012.