A rumored heavyweight bout between former champion Junior dos Santos and Stipe Miocic has now been made official as the headliner for December 13th’s UFC On FOX 13 event in Arizona.
Dos Santos had actually originally been scheduled to fight Miocic at UFC 173 back in May, then pushed back to the TUF Brazil 3 Finale before eventually being shelfed after the Brazilian star suffered an injury to his hand.
Miocic would go on to fight Fabio Maldonado instead and took just 35 seconds to TKO the late replacement. That extended Miocic’s current unbeaten run to three fights and leaves him with a 6-1 record overall in the UFC so far, placing him at No.4 on the current UFC heavyweight rankings.
By the time their fight comes around it will have been over a year since dos Santos last fought, suffering another convincing defeat at the hands of Cain Velasquez who put a sustained beating on him over the course of five rounds.
Velasquez remains the only fighter to have beaten him in the UFC, doing so twice, though JDS does hold a KO win over him too in their first meeting. As such the former champion is still placed as the current No.2 contender in the division.
Another heavyweight match-up was announced for UFC On FOX 13 late last week with Alistair Overeem set to take on Stefan Struve while it’s also just been revealed that Matt Mitrione will fight Gabriel Gonzaga.
Heavyweight fights tend to attract viewers, so stacking three such bouts on one card should work out well for the final UFC on FOX show of the year.
