Shogun Takes on Anthony Smith in Germany

Shogun Takes on Anthony Smith:

By Jon Prentice

Less than 2 weeks out from UFC Fight Night 134, the UFC have had a re-shuffle leading in a change to the originally scheduled main event. With Volkan Oezdemir being removed from the light heavyweight showdown with Shogun Rua in favour of a clash with Alexander Gustafsson next month at UFC 227, Rua will now take on Anthony Smith in the shows main event.

Anthony “Lionheart” Smith, 29, (29-13) had been campaigning heavily for a fight in his home state of Nebraska when the UFC sets up shop in Lincoln on August 25th, however he will now be given a much bigger opportunity as he will feature in his first ever main event for the promotion, stepping in on just over 2 weeks notice.

Smith most recently defeated MMA legend Rashad Evans in a light heavyweight showdown at UFC 225, forcing the former 205lbs champion into retirement in the process following a 53 second KO victory. He will be making his second consecutive appearance at 205lbs having fought at middleweight for his previous 6 fights in his second UFC stint, going 4-2 in the process with three of his four wins coming via KO/TKO.

“Shogun” Rua, 36, (25-10) comes into the contest off the back of a 16 month lay off having last competed at UFC Fight Night 106 in March of 2017. He is on a 3 fight win streak having defeated Gian Villante, Corey Anderson and Antonio Rogerio Nogueira in his most successful UFC run to date. The former light heavyweight champion has gone 9-8 during his UFC tenure but appears to have found a new lease of life over the last few years and hopes to make another run for the title at 36 years of age.

UFC Fight Night 134 will go down on July 22nd from the Barclaycard Arena in Hamburg, Germany, in what will be the promotions second visit to the city. The latest fight card is as follows

Main Card

Mauricio Rua vs Anthony Smith
Ilir Latifi vs Glover Teixeira
Stefan Struve vs Marcin Tybura
Abu Azaitar vs Vitor Miranda
Marc Diakiese vs Nasrat Haqparast
Alan Jouban vs Danny Roberts

Preliminary Card

Damir Hadzovic vs Nick Hein
Bartosz Fabinski vs Emil Meek
Justin Ledet vs Aleksandar Rakic
Jeremy Kimball vs Darko Stosic
Pingyuan Liu vs Damian Stasiak

Photo Credit: MMA Junkie