Heavyweight contenders Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira and Cain Velasquez will make a second attempt at a match up; this time at UFC 110 on Feb. 21 at the Acer Arena in Sydney, Australia.
Numerous reports have circulated today placing the bout at UFC 109 on Feb. 7 in Las Vegas, however, MMAjunkie.com has since confirmed that Nogueira and Velasquez have verbally agreed to face each other at UFC 110 in the land down under.
Nogueira and Velasquez were originally scheduled to meet in the main event of UFC 108 on Jan. 2 in Las Vegas, however, a severe staph infection forced Nogueira off the event.
The match-up has huge implications within the UFC's heavyweight division as expressed by UFC President Dana White before the fight was scrapped from UFC 108.
"Nogueira vs. Velasquez is a great matchup between the present and the future of the heavyweight division," White said. "Nogueira showed in the (Randy) Couture fight that he still has plenty left to offer at the top level of the game, and Velasquez was devastating in his win over Ben Rothwell, so with both guys in top form, we're definitely going to see a No. 1 contender emerge from this fight to take on the winner of the Brock Lesnar vs. Shane Carwin title fight."
After winning the UFC interim heavyweight title by defeating Tim Sylvia at UFC 81 in February of 2008, Nogueira (32-5-2) was thought to have been back the old form which saw him win the Pride heavyweight championship. However, injuries and another staff infection took a toll on him before his fight with Frank Mir at UFC 92, and he went on to lose that contest in a dismal performance. He bounced back in his next fight however, with a very impressive unanimous decision win over Randy Couture at UFC 102 in August.
Nogueira has put together a 3-1 UFC record since joining the promotion in July 2007, with his other Octagon win coming over Heath Herring in his UFC debut.
Velasquez most recently scored a impressive second-round TKO win over Ben Rothwell at UFC 104 on Oct. 24. The American Kickboxing Academy product is off to a 5-0 start with the UFC since debuting with the promotion in April 2008, with previous Octagon wins over Brad Morris, Jake O'Brien, Denis Stojnic and Cheick Kongo.
Though officially unannounced, UFC 110 will likely be headlined by an explosive middleweight contest between Wanderlei Silva and Michael Bisping. Other bouts rumored for the event include Mirko "Cro Cop" Filipovic vs. Ben Rothwell, Rich Franklin vs. Keith Jardine and Stephan Bonnar vs. Krzysztof Soszynski.
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