UFC fight night 87 Takes place in Brazil on May 14. The event is headlined by Ronaldo Souza taking on the former champion and number one contender Vitor Belfort. Now, the common event may have been announced in a welterweight contender fight between Matt Brown and Damien Maia the jujitsu black belt.Both fighters currently sit right within or near the top five of the division with Demian Maia coming in at number five and Brown. The only people ranked above them are current or former number one contenders and a former champion. it is possible the winner of this bout could fight for the title next.
Matt Brown had a career defining seven fight win streak which culminated with a fight with current champion Robbie Lawler before he was the champion. That fight went the distance and Lawler took the decision but Brown was a very close loser where many people thought he did better than the scorecards showed. Unfortunately. that loss was followed up with a lackluster fight against former champion Johnny Hendricks which was barely a fight at all. He was able to rebound with a first round knockout of surging Welterweight Tim Means and had to drop out of his next two fights due to injury.
Now, he takes on BJJ Black belt and ground ace Demain Maia who despite being nearly 40 is continuing to show evolution in his fight game and could be a title challenger this year. Maia, who turns 40 this year, has not taken as much damage as most fighters due to is phenomenal ground control. In his last three fights, he took out an undefeated fighter and two fighters under 30. H is the only fighter to beat Neil Magny in his last ten fights, and proved Gunnar nelson’s ground game was not up to snuff with a dominating performance over the Jiu Jitsu “prodigy”. With four straight wins he has called for a title shot and it is hard to deny since his wins have come with such ease.
Brown will have a tough time in this fight considering nine of his thirteen losses have come by submission nearly half of Maia’s wins have come by submission. Plus, Maia has never been finished at 170 and only been knocked out once in his six career losses. Who will in this fight and take one step closer to realizing their UFC championship bout dreams?