UFC London was the Bermuda Triangle of match-ups. It was long supposed to be the card basically made for Michael Bisping’s retirement fight. After opponents were ruled out one-by-one, finally either Bisping or the UFC decided he would not be fighting on that card. Darren Till and Stephen Thompson was also ruled out. Finally, we have a big name attached to the card and a finalized main event. Former UFC heavyweight champion Fabricio Werdum will square off against Alexander Volkov.
Your heavyweight #UFCLondon main event!!
🇧🇷 @FabricioWerdum vs. @AlexDragoVolkov 🇷🇺🎟 https://t.co/NFQ6n2IJTb
🎟 https://t.co/j3rWpJlaOI pic.twitter.com/K4JzQHP6BP— UFC Europe (@UFCEurope) February 1, 2018
Alexander Volkov has sneakily strung together five straight wins, which is enough to start making him a contender at heavyweight. This is his litmus test to decide if he can eventually become a fighter who’d be in line for a heavyweight title shot in the near future, but Fabricio Werdum is one incredibly tough test. Werdum himself is on a two-fight win streak. He had a lightning fast victory over Walt Harris, so quick that he fought (and beat) Marcin Tybura just a month later.
Werdum and Volkov will both be battling for basically to hold their spot in a waiting line, since the champion Stipe Miocic will be busy all the way up until his July 7th superfight with Daniel Cormier. The UFC London card isn’t complete yet, but below is what the card looks like as of right now with a bout order that has yet to be determined. No co-main event has been made official yet, but it seems like Jimi Manuwa’s fight with Jan Blachowicz is a no-brainer.
UFC London card:
Fabricio Werdum vs. Alexander Volkov
Jimi Manuwa vs. Jan Blachowicz
Leon Edwards vs. Peter Sobotta
Mark Godbeer vs. Dmitry Sosnovskiy
Paul Craig vs. Magomed Ankalaev
Alex Reyes vs. Nasrat Haqparast
Rustam Khabilov vs. Kajan Johnson
Jack Marshman vs. Zaleski dos Santos
Danny Roberts vs. Oliver Enkamp
Danny Henry vs. Hakeem Dawodu
That feeling when you’re headlining #UFCLondon ✊😄
Alexander Volkov vs. Fabrício Werdum goes down at The O2 Arena on March 17th 😏 pic.twitter.com/IsACBea5wO
— UFC on BT Sport (@btsportufc) February 1, 2018
This article first appeared on BJPenn.com on 2/1/2018.