News of a lightweight matchup surfaced on Friday for the upcoming UFC on Versus 3 (aka UFC Live: Sanchez vs. Kampmann) event featuring Joe “Daddy” Stevenson (31-12) and Danny Castillo (10-3).
The news comes just over a month before the scheduled March 3rd date for the Versus show, which is set to take place at the KFC Yum! Center in Louisville, Ky. MMAjunkie.com confirmed the match with sources close to the fight.
No confirmation was given as to whether the fight would take place on the main card or not, but they did speculate that the fight would take the place of a bout between Paulo Thiago vs. Johny Hendricks, after Thiago withdrew due to injury earlier this week.
Stevenson’s career with the UFC is in a precarious position after back-to-back losses and a record of 2-4 in his last six fights. His last octagon appearance was in December at UFC 124 where he was knocked out in the first round by Mac Danzig at the Montreal event. Previous to that he lost a unanimous decision to George Sotiropoulos at UFC 110 in Syndey, Australia in a fight that earned both men the “Fight of the Night” bonus, a factor that could play a factor in the UFC retaining him should he lose a close fight to Castillo.
This will be Castillo’s UFC debut as he makes the move over from the WEC after the merger. He has won his last two and is 2-2 in his last four fights. Castillo also fought in December but as part of the last WEC event at WEC 53 against Will Kerr, earning a first round knockout. The other victory was a unanimous decision against Dustin Poirier at WEC 50, while the losses were to Anthony Pettis at WEC 47 and to Shane Roller at WEC 44.