(Cote has never been the same since the night he had a run-in with Rousimar Palhares’ doppelganger.)
When all is said and done for the human race, there will be three rivalries that stand above them all in the footnotes of history: America vs. The Brits, Germany vs. Everybody, and now, Canada vs. Vietnam. Though there hasn’t been a feud between the two on the level of the Hatfields and McCoys yet, things are about to change. Why, you ask? Well, it has just been announced that Canada’s own Patrick Cote will be returning to the octagon to face Vietnamese-born San Shou expert Cung Le at UFC 148. The war that will inevitably result from this pairing will easily go down as the most significant clash Canada has gotten into since the Hans Island dispute with Denmark in the early 80′s.
Cote will be filling the void left by Rich Franklin, who recently vacated his fight with Le to face Wanderlei Silva (again) at UFC 147 in Vitor Belfort’s absence. Cote has not fought in the UFC since October of 2010 at UFC 121, where he dropped a unanimous decision to Tom Lawlor, his third straight loss in the promotion, and was subsequently released.
Since exiting the promotion, Cote has strung together four straight wins, including a most recent first round knockout of Shooto/IFL vet Gustavo Machado, a win that we speculated could earn him a trip back to the UFC. And damn it, it feels good to be right for once.
Check out a video of Cote’s most recent performance below.
Cung Le has not fought since coming up short against Wanderlei Silva at UFC 139, in a fight that saw him dominate the first round with his patented kicks, only to end up on the wrong end of a controversial TKO stoppage in the second.
This is definitely an intriguing fight for both players involved. On one hand, Cote presents a lot of the same problems for Le that Scott Smith did, being a hard-hitting, yet slightly one-dimensional striker who will more than likely keep things standing. Unlike Smith, however, Cote’s chin is made of titanium, and he sure as hell won’t be attacking Le with the kind reckless abandon/stupidity that Smith did in the pair’s second encounter. Cote also has much better footwork, and will hopefully be able to avoid the spinning attacks of Le, which are responsible for more cases of sudden onset diarrhea than Lay’s WOW Chips. Given Le’s susceptibility to the KO (both his 2 losses have come that way), this could make for an incredibly entertaining, back and forth brawl that ends in devastating fashion.
UFC 148 goes down on July 7th, 2012 from the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas.
Who you got, Potato Nation?