As was widely expected Scottish star Joanne Calderwood has been booked for the UFC’s first ever visit to the country at UFC Fight Night 72 on July 18th against Bec Rawlings.
There’s been bad blood between these two fighters for some time, dating back to when they were first paired up to fight for the Invicta FC promotion back in 2013. The fight ended up being cancelled, but they then found themselves in the TUF house as part of the cast for The Ultimate Fighter season 20 which apparently confirmed their dislike for each other.
Calderwood emerged from TUF 20 as one of the stars of the season, in no small part due to her soft-spoken, mild-mannered demeanour outside the Octagon which is in direct contrast to her straight-ahead striking style inside of it, but despite having been ranked as one of the top strawweight fighters, she’s struggled to show her best form in the UFC to date.
Calderwood did earn a unanimous decision win in her first official UFC fight with Seohee Ham in December of last year, but was then upset by Maryna Moroz who submitted her in just 90 seconds in Poland last month which put an end to her title ambitions for the time being.
The opposite is true of Rawlings who lost her first UFC fight against Heather Jo Clark, but has since picked up a first round submission win over Lisa Ellis.
UFC Fight Night 72 is still without a main event at this moment in time with less than two months to go until the show takes place in Glasgow.
