Kicking things off when it comes to announcements for 2018’s final card was the big super fight between champions Cris Cyborg and Amanda Nunes. The second of surely multiple top-ranked matchups has now been brought to our attention.
In a division that is desperate for some waves to be made, light heavyweight needs someone to make some noise.
Two men who have begun to do so lately have been the likes of Sweden’s “Sledgehammer” Ilir Latifi (14-5) and The Ultimate Fighter season 19 winner, Corey “Overtime” Anderson(11-4).
Kimura now reports that the two top 10 ranked light heavyweight contenders will collide in the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas on December 29 for UFC 232.
The 28-year old Anderson just recently capitalized on the biggest opportunity of his career thanks to Latifi.
At UFC Hungary this past month, the co-main event was originally supposed to feature Latifi taking on the perennial top contender and former title challenger Glover Teixeira. However, Latifi would be forced out of the bout due to injury and giving Anderson the new spot.
Prior to the Teixeira bout, Anderson had rebounded off of a rough two-fight skid that consisted of knockout losses to Jimi Manuwa and Ovince Saint Preux. The rebound win was that of a dominant unanimous decision over Patrick Cummins.
Anderson then followed it with the biggest win of his career against Teixeira who he outwrestled to another unanimous decision victory thus putting him on his first winning streak since 2015-2016.
For Latifi, he has quietly been racking up an impressive resume of his own.
The Swede entered the UFC on extremely short notice in 2012 with a 7-2 record. Since then, he has gone 7-3 with his only losses coming to some of the very best fighters in Jan Blachowicz and the Bellator champions Ryan Bader (light heavyweight) and Gegard Mousasi (middleweight).
Five of Latifi’s seven UFC victories have come via finish (three KO/TKOs, two submissions) and surely he’ll be looking to make it six against Anderson.
This article first appeared on BJPenn.com on 8/27/2018