On June 11, the UFC will head to the South Pacific with UFC New Zealand. The card, which will go down inside Aukland’s Spark Arena, already has fans very excited.
Much of the excitement surrounding this card can be attributed to its dynamite main event. This main event will pit brick-fisted heavyweight veteran Mark Hunt against the streaking Derrick Lewis. Now, this main event is represented in an official, promotional fight poster – and it’s a good one. While the typical UFC promotional poster simply features the card’s competitors, side-by-side, this one shows Lewis and Hunt squaring off with crazed expressions on their faces.
See it below:
The official poster for #UFCNZ is the best poster the @UFC has done in a long, long time. Nice work! pic.twitter.com/YUa6icrrUo
— Tom Taylor (@TomTayMMA) April 22, 2017
Lewis, who holds the number six spot in the UFC heavyweight rankings, will enter this fight on an impressive, six-fight streak. This streak is composed of a trio of TKOs over Viktor Pesta, Damian Grabowski and Gabriel Gonzaga, a decision defeat of Roy Nelson, another TKO win over Shamil Abdurakhimov, and most recently, a crushing, come from behind knockout of long time contender Travis Browne. Lewis’ last loss occurred in June of 2016, when he was knocked out by a wild, second-round hook kick dealt by Shawn Jordan.
The seventh-ranked Hunt, meanwhile, was last seen in the cage in March, when he was put down by an Alistair Overeem knee. Prior to that, he gave up a decision to Brock Lesnar, though this decision was ultimately ruled a no contest when Lesnar tested positive for banned substances. Before this chaotic fight with Lesnar, hunt scored back-to-back knockout wins over Antonio “Bigfoot” Silva, and the recently suspended Frank Mir.
Other highlights of the card announced so far are a middleweight bout between Derek Brunson and Dan Kelly, a flyweight bout between Joseph Benavidez and Ben Nguyen, and a lightweight bout between Dan Hooker and Ross Pearson.
Who do you think wins the UFC New Zealand main event? Sound off, PENN Nation!
This article first appeared on BJPenn.com on 4/22/2017.