The fight announcements have been coming thick and fast this week, and to make it even trickier to keep track of who’s fighting who, the UFC have just confirmed alterations to two of their upcoming bouts.
Firstly, No.9 ranked lightweight Michael Johnson has had to pull out with his UFC On FOX 12 main card fight with Josh Thomson due to an injury.
That leaves the UFC in a tough spot since there’s only two weeks until the event, but they’ve managed to keep Thomson on the card by drafting in Bobby Green to find him instead.
Green is currently ranked at No.12 in the division after racking up three victories in a row, including a win over Pat Healy last time out, since joining from Strikeforce last year.
This is a big opportunity for Green, but it’s a tough ask to step in at short notice to take on an opponent of Thomson’s caliber.
‘The Punk’ is coming off a loss, but taking former lightweight champion Ben Henderson to a split decision is no small feat, nor is the fact that he became the first person ever to stop Nate Diaz by strikes in his previous fight. As such it’s not surprising to see that Thomson still holds down the No.3 spot on the official lightweight rankings.
So, the UFC On FOX 12 fight card is intact again, but there is one hitch as Green had to step away from a fight with Abel Trujillo at UFC Fight Night 47 on August 16th in order to take this higher profile bout.
Again the UFC have quickly found a solution though as former TUF winner Ross Pearson has now agreed to fight Trujillo.
Pearson can consider himself extremely unfortunate to have dropped a split decision victory to Diego Sanchez in his last Octagon outing – widely considered to be one of the worst judges rulings in recent memory – and taking on this new fight on just a months notice suggests he’s eager to banish that memory and get back in the win column as soon as possible.
Trujillo is no easy opponent though, having knocked out Jamie Varner in his last fight, and TKO’d Roger Bowling before that.
