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By: Jamie Penick, MMATorch Editor-in-Chief
A middleweight bout between Michael Bisping and Jorge Rivera has been verbally agreed to for the UFC 127 card in Australia in February, according to multiple published reports.
After Alessio Sakara was pulled out of their bout at UFC 122 due to illness, Rivera said he was 95% sure he'd face Bisping in Australia. Bisping said he hadn't yet been approached with the bout, but was expecting to fight on the card, and now the two have agreed to the fight.
The bout joins already announced bouts of B.J. Penn vs. Jon Fitch and George Sotiropoulos vs. Dennis Siver, as well as a rumored bout between Carlos Condit and Chris Lytle. The event takes place from the Acer Arena on Sunday, February 27, airing live in the U.S. due to the time difference on Saturday, February 26.
Penick's Analysis: I do like this matchup, and think it could be a very good fight in the middleweight division. It's a good fight for the fans in Australia, and this card is shaping up pretty well, for sure. I don't know if it's necessarily a pay-per-view worthy show at this point, as that's what they're planning right now, but they may add another pay-per-view level fight to try to sell it better.
[Michael Bisping art by Cory Gould (c) MMATorch.com]
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Jamie Penick, editor-in-chief
(mmatorcheditor@gmail.com)
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