A light heavyweight fight appears to be in the works for this May’s UFC on FUEL TV 3 event between Brazilian fighter Fabio Maldonado (18-4) and ‘The Duke’ Igor Pokrajac (25-7).
News of the matchup was confirmed by Tatame.com.br on Tuesday.
UFC on FUEL TV 3 is scheduled for May 15, 2012 at the Patriot Center in Fairfax, Virginia. No word was provided if the bout would appear on the main or preliminary card, I would expect it to take place on the main card or at least headlining the prelims.
Maldonado had an eleven fight win streak stopped in his second Octagon appearance last June, losing to Kyle Kingsbury by decision at the “TUF 13 Finale”. Since that time the Brazilian has had two fights booked, first versus Aaron Rosa at UFC on Versus 6 and then against Caio Magalhaes at UFC 142, but each time Maldonado was forced out due to injury.
Pokrajac was expected to face Thiago Silva on the FUEL card after replacing an injured Brandon Vera, but an injury on the FUEL TV 2 card saw Silva pulled to compete at the Swedish event. This left the Croatian without an opponent till today. ‘The Duke’ is currently on a two fight win streak having stopped Krzysztof Soszynski at UFC 140 via knockout and Todd Brown via TKO at UFC on Versus 3 one year ago.