By
John Heinis on Wednesday, February 13
th 2013
This year’s UFC card on Memorial Day Weekend is set to have two pivotal heavyweight match ups.
At UFC 160, heavyweight champion Cain Velasquez rematches Antonio Silva while former holder Junior dos Santos has a long-awaited match up with Alistair Overeem. The news was announced on FUEL TV’s UFC Tonight Tuesday evening.
On last year’s Memorial Day card, UFC 146, Velasquez fought “Bigfoot” and the match up was anything but competitive.
The former Arizona State Sun Devil immediately put Silva on his back and unloaded relentless ground and pound, leaving the Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu black belt a bloody mess less than a minute into the fight.
The ref waived off the fight at the 3:36 mark of the first round and that was that.
However, Silva has since rebounded with two stunning knockouts over Travis Browne and Overeem, the latter being a massive upset as “The Demolition Man” was promised a title shot with a victory over his Brazilian counterpart.
Also worth noting is that JDS, then the champ of the 265-pound division, was set to meet Overeem for the title at UFC 146, but “The Reem” ended up failing a pre-fight drug test for elevated testosterone levels.
As a result, he was suspended and fined by the Nevada State Athletic Commission. Former title holder Frank Mir took his place, only to get TKO’ed by dos Santos in the second round.
This marks Velasquez’s first title defense since winning a rematch with JDS at UFC 155, winning a completely one-sided decision after getting knocked out cold in their first meeting at UFC on FOX 1 in Nov. 2011.