It did not take long for Mauricio “Shogun” Rua to find a new opponent after Volkan Oezdemir was pulled from their July 22nd Hamburg bout to instead face Alexander Gustafsson at UFC 227, as Rua will now be facing none other than Anthony “Lionheart” Smith at the Hamburg event. Sources close to MMA news have confirmed that the bout has been verbally agreed upon, though is currently unsigned.
Don’t look now, but the former light heavyweight champion is on a three-fight win streak, with his last three wins coming over Antonio Rogerio Nogueira, a very controversial split-decision victory over Corey Anderson, and a TKO win over Gian Villante. His opponent, Anthony Smith, is six years the junior of Rua, and is looking to put down another legend after stopping Rashad Evans in the first round of what would be Evans’s last bout. Smith has won four of his last five bouts, with all four victories coming by KO/TKO.
Shogun Rua was last knocked out in November 2014 against Ovince Saint Preux. Since then, he has only fought once a year, which has kept the veteran fresh enough to win each of these annual bouts and will be looking to continue this trend against a very dangerous and hungry Anthony Smith.
With the addition of this light heavyweight bout, here is the current lineup for UFC Hamburg:
Anthony Smith vs. Mauricio Rua
Glover Teixeira vs. Ilir Latifi
Marcin Tybura vs. Stefan Struve
Vitor Miranda vs. Abu Azaitar
Nasrat Haqparast vs. Marc Diakiese
Danny Roberts vs. Al Jouban
Nick Hein vs. Damir Hadzovic
Emil Meek vs. Bartosz Fabinski
Justin Ledet vs. Aleksandar Rakic
Damian Stasiak vs. Pingyuan Liu
Jeremy Kimball vs. Darko Stosic
Who’s your pick? Shogun Rua or Anthony Smith?
