Arguably, the welterweight division’s most accomplished grapplers, Jake Shields and Demian Maia are now confirmed to face each other at a UFC Fight Night event on Fox Sports 1 in October.
Talk of a match between the two has been circulating for some time now, and last month, it was reported that the two had verbally agreed to a bout. However, no date was set—until now—according to Guilherme Cruz of MMA Fighting.
The event has no city or venue yet but was confirmed by Shields’ trainer, Cesar Gracie.
“From my understanding, that’s Jake’s next fight,” he told MMA Fighting.
Both Maia and Shields are former middleweights who have been flitting between weight divisions with limited success.
Maia dropped down to the 170-pound division after a loss to future champion Chris Weidman in 2012 and has since gone on a tear, walking through three opponents at welterweight including Rick Story and Jon Fitch.
Shields, meanwhilw, perhaps due to a lack of exercise equipment, has yet to recapture the form that saw him win the Strikeforce 185-pound belt in the UFC. After a loss in a title fight to Georges St-Pierre and an embarrassing 53-second KO at the hands of Jake Ellenberger, he fought once more at welterweight before returning to middleweight.
However, after defeating Ed Herman in a languid three-round decision, the bout was overturned into a no-contest, and Shields has since returned to welterweight.
He beat Tyron Woodley, just barely, in his last outing and will be hoping a win against the highly touted Maia will get him back in the reckoning.
Khurram Aziz is a Featured Columnist on Bleacher Report. Check out my site: ahappydeal.com
Read more MMA news on BleacherReport.com