Two featherweight fights were recently added to an impressive UFC 166 fight card.
On Wednesday evening, MMAJunkie.com reported a meeting between Matt Grice and Jeremy Larsen. Then, Bleacher Report’s own Jeremy Botter learned of a matchup between Charles Oliveira and Estevan Payan from Chron.com on Thursday.
Oliveira has lost two in a row against top-10 featherweights, so a bout with Payan is a needed step down in competition for the promising Brazilian. After losing to Jeremy Stephens in his UFC debut, Payan‘s roster spot with the organization could be on the line against Oliveira.
Grice is coming off of a loss, but it came in a bout with Dennis Bermudez that is widely considered one of the leading candidates for 2013 Fight of the Year. A bout with Larsen, who will be making his 145-pound debut after two straight losses to start his UFC career, should give Grice a good chance to get back into the win column.
Scheduled for Oct. 19, UFC 166 will be hosted by the Toyota Center in Houston. With the addition of these two featherweight contests, the event’s fight card now looks like this:
- Cain Velasquez vs. Junior dos Santos
- Gilbert Melendez vs. Diego Sanchez
- Daniel Cormier vs. Roy Nelson
- Luke Rockhold vs. Tim Boetsch
- Nate Marquardt vs. Hector Lombard
- Gabriel Gonzaga vs. Shawn Jordan
- George Sotiropoulos vs. KJ Noons
- Tony Ferguson vs. Mike Rio
- TJ Waldburger vs. Adlan Amagov
- George Roop vs. Francisco Rivera
- Matt Grice vs. Jeremy Larsen
- Charles Oliveira vs. Estevan Payan
Sean Smith is a Featured MMA Columnist for Bleacher Report who has also had work promoted on UFC.com and TheMMACorner.com. Follow on Twitter @SeanSmithMMA.
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