A heavyweight clash between Ben Rothwell and Blagoy Ivanov is believed to be in the works for a yet-to-be-announced UFC event in March.
Rothwell is returning to the Octagon after a two-year suspension for an “anabolic androgenic steroid of exogenous origin,” while he was preparing for a fight with Fabricio Werdum at UFC 211 in May of 2017.
Prior to that Rothwell had suffered a unanimous decision loss against Junior dos Santos, which had ended a notable four-fight winning streak in which ‘Big’ Ben had TKO’d Brandon Vera and Alistair Overeem, then submitted Matt Mitrione and Josh Barnett.
In Ivanov he’ll face a former WSOF / PFL champion who made his UFC debut in the summer of last year, but came off second-best against Junior dos Santos on the scorecards.
That was only the second loss of Ivanov’s 19-fight career however and so he’ll be hopeful that he can get back to winning ways in 2019.