The UFC Fight Night 49 event in Oklahoma on August 23rd has been bolstered by the addition of two new bouts that are expected to feature on the main card.
First up, in the middleweight division Francis Carmont will take on Thales Leites.
After a strong start to his UFC career that saw him rack up six wins in a row, Carmont has slumped to back-to-back defeats against Ronaldo ‘Jacare’ Souza and CB Dollaway, resulting in him sliding out of the top 10 rankings at 185lbs (now at No.12).
A former UFC middleweight title contender, Leites has been doing well since he rejoined the promotion last August and is currently on a three fight winning streak inside the Octagon. As a result he’s now managed to move into the No.15 spot in the latest divisional rankings.
Meanwhile, UFC Fight Night 49 will also now feature a welterweight encounter between Demian Maia and Mike Pyle.
Maia is currently ranked No.8 in the 170lb division courtesy of a 4-2 record since moving down to the welterweight class in July of 2012. He bounced back from two losses in a row back in May in his native Brazil when he defeated newcomer Alexander Yakovlev.
Pyle has lost only once in his last six Octagon encounters – a KO defeat at the hands of Matt Brown last August on FOX. He was able to at least partially banish the memory of that however with a third round TKO victory over TJ Waldburger in February and will now be hoping that a win over Maia could propel him from his current No.12 spot on the rankings back into the top 10.
Neither of these two bouts will headline the event however, with that honor falling to a lightweight fight between former champ Ben Henderson and Rafael dos Anjos, while Thiago Alves Vs Jordan Mein is also likely to land on the evening’s main card.
