A welterweight tilt has been added to the Ultimate Fighting Championship’s (UFC) Fortaleza card next month.
The UFC announced the addition of Sergio Moraes vs. Max Griffin to the UFC Fight Night card on March 11. The event will take place inside the Centro de Formação Olímpica do Nordeste in Brazil.
Moraes has gone 5-0, 1 NC in his last six bouts. His last defeat came at the hands of Cezar Ferreira back in June 2012. In his current stretch, he has earned three finishes including a triangle choke submission over Neil Magny.
Griffin has gone 3-1 in his last four outings. He was TKO’d in his UFC debut by Colby Covington. “Pain” rebounded nicely with a 54-second TKO victory over Erick Montano at a UFC Fight Night event back in Nov. 2016.
Middleweight action will serve as the main event of next month’s Fortaleza card. Former UFC light heavyweight champion Vitor Belfort is looking to prove he still belongs inside the Octagon with elite fighters. It’ll be a tough task to complete as he will go one-on-one with Kelvin Gastelum.
Two lightweights looking to get one step closer to a title opportunity are going to clash in the co-main event. Edson Barboza has won two straight bouts against Anthony Pettis and Gilbert Melendez. He’s meeting Beneil Dariush, who has also won two straight.
Former UFC 205-pound kingpin Mauricio “Shogun” Rua wants to earn his third win in a row. To do that he’ll need to get past Gian Villante, who is coming off a TKO victory over Saparbek Safarov.
One of the more recently announced match-ups for the event is a rematch. Alex Oliveira and Tim Means will lock horns again after their controversial encounter late last year. In that bout, Means kneed his opponent to the head twice while “Cowboy’s” knee was down. That is illegal under the Unified Rules of MMA with or without the new revisions. The bout was ruled a no contest.
