(Photoprops: J-Dog)
On last night’s episode of ESPN’s "MMA Live", co-host Kenny Florian revealed that his next fight is close to finalized. As the two-time lightweight title contender said, "We’ve verbally agreed to fight Evan Dunham, which is great news. Phenomenal opponent, which I’m very excited about, and it looks like it may happen on Super Bowl weekend."
Ken-Flo is coming off of his unanimous decision loss to Gray Maynard at UFC 118, while Dunham — previously #7 on our increasingly-buckshot list of the 10 greatest undefeated fighters in MMA — recently left it in the hands of the judges at UFC 119, losing a decision to Sean Sherk that Dana White publicly called a robbery. As we wrote then, "it will be interesting to see if the UFC simply ignores the amazing incompetence of the ringside officials on Saturday night and keeps the kid full-speed-ahead on his rise to a title shot." Even though Florian is coming off his own loss, the matchup definitely feels like a well-deserved step up the ladder for Dunham.
It’s also another potentially sick addition to UFC 127 (February 5th, Las Vegas), an event that may feature Silva vs. Belfort, Jones vs. Bader, and Griffin vs. Franklin. Now that we think about it, a Florian vs. Sherk rematch would have made just as much sense here. Your thoughts?