Better late than never and on a day like this the Ultimate Fighting Championship will keep me busy late into this evening with all of their bout announcements.
Announced for the promotions upcoming premier on FX tv, scheduled for January 20th in Nashville, Tennessee, a middleweight between Eric ‘Red’ Schafer (12-6-2) and Jorge ‘El Conquistador’ Rivera (18-9) has been agreed to, as well as a bantamweight matchup featuring Mike Brown (25-8) vs. Vagner Rocha (7-2).
UFC on FX 1 (aka UFC Fight Night 26 & UFC Fight Night: Guillard vs. Miller) is set to take place on January 20th at the Bridgestone Arena in Nashville, Tennessee. The main card will air live on FX, while the prelim card is expected to stream live at FOX.com.
The bouts were announced at UFC.com earlier today.
Verbal agreements are in for a middleweight match in Nashville on January 20 as Eric “Red” Schafer takes on Jorge “El Conquistador” Rivera, announced UFC president Dana White today.
Former featherweight champion Mike Brown looks to keep another run at the title alive as he takes on Vagner Rocha in Rocha’s first visit to 145 pounds.
Schafer returned to the UFC after one bout by replacing Nick Catone at UFC 136 last month. ‘Red’ would lose to opponent Aaron Simpson at the Texas event putting his UFC record at 3-5 in his career. He was released in the spring of 2010 after losing to Jason Brilz at the UFC Live: Vera vs. Jones, it was a second straight loss for Schafer. He then went on to earn a victory at an XFO event in September, making his middleweight debut and was picked up as a late replacement for Catone at UFC 136.
Rivera too is likely on the chopping block, having suffered two straight losses himself. The most recent was a split decision loss to Constantinos Philippou at UFC 133, while the other was his memorable bout versus Michael Bisping at UFC 127 last February. The match was memorable due to the amount of trash talk Rivera had built up leading to the fight, which bubbled over in the Octagon as Bisping landed an illegal knee which would eventually lead to ‘El Conquistador’s’ defeat. Which was followed by ‘The Count’ berating Rivera’s corner.
I’m going to pick Rivera on this one, but either way this may be the last time fans see ‘El Conquistador’ in the Octagon as he talked about retirement after his loss to Philippou.
Former WEC featherweight champ Mike Brown finally found his first victory in the Octagon last August, defeating Nam Phan by unanimous decision at UFC 133. Brown had two bouts with the UFC earlier in the year, both in January, losing to Rani Yahya by decision at the Fight for the Troops 2 show, and to Diego Nunes via split decision at UFC 125.
Rocha is now 1-1 with the top promotion having competed with various top promotions such as Bellator and Strikeforce previous to his Octagon debut. His last fight was in September at the UFC Fight Night 25 event, earning a second round submission win over Cody McKenzie. He debuted in June, losing a unanimous decision to Donald Cerrone after replacing an injured Mac Danzig at the Vancouver, Canada event.
I’m really hoping Brown has now found his confidence to once again push himself to the top of the featherweight division, but he’ll face a tough submission fighter in Rocha so I’m keeping my fingers crossed he’s practiced his submission escapes for this fight.