A middleweight fight between Jared Cannonier and Sean Strickland has been targeted to headline UFC Fight Night 212 on October 15th at a destination still to be confirmed.
For Cannonier the fight comes after he was unsuccessful in his attempt to take the middleweight title from dominant champion Israel Adesanya at UFC 276 back in July, losing out by unanimous decision.
Prior to that Cannonier had won five of his previous six fights since moving down to 185lbs, beating the likes of Derek Brunson, Kelvin Gastelum, Jack Hermansson, Anderson Silva and David Branch along the way.
Now he’ll go up against Strickland, who saw his own title aspirations falter after a first round KO defeat at the hands of kickboxing ace Alex Pereira at UFC 276 last month.
Strickland had been building up a head of steam before that, winning six fights in a row against opponents like Jack Hermansson, Uriah Hall, Krzysztof Jotko and Brendan Allen.
Strickland’s recent loss saw him slip to No.7 in the rankings, while Cannonier holds down the No.2 spot heading into a UFC Fight Night 212 event that’s still very much a work in progress, but does have fights like Cub Swanson vs. Jonathan Martinez and Brandon Royval vs. Askar Askarov attached to it.
