Space on the UFC’s remaining 2008 shows are filling up fast, and Sherdog’s Andy Cotterill has news on a lightweight match that could be a sleeper on the biggest card of the year:
… Toronto’s Mark Bocek (5-2) will… be fighting on the “Couture vs. Lesnar” card, where he’ll be pitted against Denver standout Alvin Robinson (9-3).
Canada’s most decorated Brazilian jiu-jitsu black belt says he asked the UFC for a fight in November, and he knew exactly who Robinson was when the lightweight was offered to him. He accepted immediately.
Accepting a personal invitation from Marcelo Garcia, Bocek will join up with American Top Team in Coconut Creek, FL, to train for the fight. Bocek was awarded his BJJ black belt by Nova Uniao’s Joao Roque (the first Canadian to earn the honor), while Robinson is a brown belt training under John Crouch and Royce Gracie. This fight has the potential to be an explosive demonstration of technical grappling and jiu jitsu, and both Bocek and Robinson will be hungry to prove their chops coming off of first-quarter 2008 submission losses to Mac Danzig and Nate Diaz, respectively.
On the other end of the scales, undefeated heavyweight Cain Velasquez’ knee injury has forced the UFC to do a bit of shuffling for December 27th’s UFC 92 event, which features an interim heavyweight title bout between Ultimate Fighter 8 coaches Frank Mir and champion Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira. Velasquez was originally slated to face newly inked ex-Cage Rage champ Mustafa Al-Turk, but Al-Turk’s manager has told MMAWeekly that his fighter now expects to face French heavyweight Cheick Kongo in his Stateside debut.
“We were offered Kongo by Joe [Silva] and we accepted the fight. We were just waiting for Kongo to get his signed bout agreement back before we could confirm it,” clarified [manager Alexis] Demetriades, adding, “Everything else is the same. Mus will be fighting on the main card, on pay-per-view. It’s a good fight.”
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