A Heavyweight fight between former division champion, Junior dos Santos, and towering knockout artist, Alexander Volkov, has officially been booked to headline the upcoming UFC Fight Night 163 event on Nov. 9 on Moscow, Russia.
Reports of the bout surfaced a few weeks back, but the promotion didn’t make it official until recently.
Junior is coming off a tough first-round knockout loss to current No. 1 contender, Francis Ngannou, at UFC on ESPN 3 this past June (see it). The crushing defeat ending “Cigano’s” momentum, stopping his win streak at three. Prior to that, “JDS” had scored impressive wins over Tai Tuivasa, Blagoy Ivanov and Derrick Lewis and was seemingly on the cusp of another shot at the strap.
“The Predator’s” heavy hands, though, had other plans.
As for Volkov, this will be his first fight in over a year as the towering big man hasn’t competed since getting knocked out by Derrick Lewis at UFC 230 last October at UFC 229. That loss ended Volkov’s six fight win streak, which included his perfect run inside the Octagon.
In his first three outings prior to that defeat, Alexander picked up huge wins over Roy Nelson, Stefan Struve and Fabricio Werdum. Now, he will look to get another win streak going in hopes of landing his first-ever shot at a UFC world strap.
Indeed, the winner of this fight could insert himself back into the championship picture in a hurry, as the 265-pound division isn’t exactly littered with top contenders with amazing win streaks who can make a case for a shot at the title at the moment, other than Francis Ngannou.
Predictions?