After scratching Junior dos Santos Vs Stefan Struve from UFC Fight Night 105’s main event, the promotion have now announced a new heavyweight headliner for the show in Halifax, Canada on February 19th.
Travis Browne Vs Derrick Lewis, a bout originally scheduled to feature on the UFC 208 main card on February 11th, will now be shunted back a week to take the top spot on the UFC Fight Night 105 show.
That solves the issue of getting the event a fight to top the bill, though it’s a little surprising to see that the decision was taken to further weaken the already much maligned UFC 208 card, which will be headlined by a woman’s featherweight title bout between Holly Holm and Germaine De Randamie.
Browne lost his last fight with Fabricio Werdum by unanimous decision back in September of last year at UFC 203, and in total has tasted defeat in four of his last six bouts, so this is a crucial match-up for him as he looks to hang on to a spot in the top 10 heavyweight rankings.
As such, Browne has made changes behind the scenes, leaving Glendale Fighting Club where he and his girlfriend Ronda Rousey have trained at under Edmond Tarverdyan for several years, and is now being coached at the Black House gym instead.
As for Lewis, he is currently riding a five-fight winning streak in the heavyweight division that’s included wins over the likes of Roy Nelson and Gabriel Gonzaga, leaving him placed just one position above Browne in the rankings at No.8.
In addition to Browne Vs Lewis, several other new bouts have also been added to UFC Fight Night 105, most notably a woman’s bantamwieght match-up between two former title contenders, Sara McMann and Liz Carmouche, while Sam Sicilia fights Gavin Tucker and Ryan Janes goes up against Gerald Meerschaert.
Meanwhile, two other fighters, Gilbert Burns and Alvaro Herrera have both pulled out of the event due to injuries, and so their respective opponents, Paul Felder and Alessandro Ricci will now fight each other instead.
