A fight between former light-heavyweight champion Jan Blachowicz and Magomed Ankalaev has been announced for UFC 282 in Las Vegas on December 10th.
Blachowicz lost the title after being submitted by Glover Teixeira in October of last year, bringing an end to a five fight winning streak that had culminated with a successful title defense against none-other than middleweight champion Israel Adesanya.
The 39-year-old has since began to pave the way back to title contention with a TKO win over Aleksander Rakic, who suffered a fight-ending knee injury in the third round.
Now the No.2 ranked Blachowicz will face the current No.3 placed Ankalaev, who has compiled a lengthy nine fight winning streak over the past four years.
Ankalaev has faced a steadily increasing level of opposition over that period, beating the likes of Ion Cutelaba (twice), Nikita Krylov, Volkan Oezdemir, Thiago Santos and most recently TKO’ing Anthony Smith in July.
So the fight between Blachowicz vs. Ankalaev could have title implications and as it happens joins a UFC 282 event that is rumored to be headlined by a light-heavyweight title rematch between Jiri Prochazka and Glover Teixeira, while the event will also feature Robbie Lawler vs. Santiago Ponzinibbio, Darren Till vs. Driscus du Plessis and Jairzinho Rozenstruik vs. Chris Daukaus.