A light heavyweight rematch between former UFC champions Forrest Griffin (18-6) and Maurício “Shogun” Rua (19-5) appears to be set for the upcoming UFC 134/UFC: Rio event in August.
MMAFighting.com announced the news on Friday morning after confirming the bout with UFC President Dana White.
UFC 134/UFC: Rio has not been officially announced but is expected to take place on August 27 at the HSBC Arena in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Only one other bout has been confirmed for the event, a UFC middleweight title defense by champ Anderson Silva, who rematches Yushin Okami in the headliner.
The original bout between Griffin and Rua took place back in September 2007 at UFC 76. Both men battled it out into the third round until Griffin was able to secure a rear naked choke submission at 4:45 to win bout. The sub would also earn him the “Submission of the Night” as well as a shot at Quinton Jackson for the UFC title.
Griffin is currently on a two fight win streak, having earned a unanimous decision over former champ Rich Franklin at UFC 126 last February. The original “Ultimate Fighter” was out of the octagon for over a year between fights promoting his book, and hadn’t fought since November 2009 at UFC 106. He headlined the event against Tito Ortiz and earned a split decision win. Before that win he suffered a knockout loss to Anderson Silva at UFC 101 and a TKO loss to Rashad Evans at UFC 92.
Rua is coming off a title loss to Jon Jones last month, a third round TKO defeat at UFC 128 in Newark. That was “Shogun’s” first title defense since his first round knockout win over Lyoto Machida at UFC 113. That bout was a rematch of their UFC 104 match which saw a very controversial unanimous decision awarded to Machida to retain his title. Despite having three title fights in the UFC, Rua is only boasts a 3-3 record with the top promotion since losing to Griffin in his UFC debut at UFC 76.