UFC Louisville has added an absolute banger in the middleweight division. Earlier today, Eurosport was the first to report that top fifteen middleweights will clash at the June Fight Night when Michel Pereira (31-11) takes on Roman Dolidze (12-3).
Starting with Dolidze, he will be looking to snap his recent two-fight losing streak. The last time we saw him was back in February in a main event against Nassourdine Imavov. That night, he lost by a decision and prior to that, he had lost a decision to Marvin Vettori.
Those two losses came on the heels of four straight wins which earned him a spot in the top ten at 185. He was knocking on the door of a title shot and now he finds himself at the tail end of the rankings. He needs a win bad at UFC Louisville and to do it, he has to defeat arguably the hottest fighter in the division.
UFC Louisville
Michel Pereira came into the UFC like a bat out of Hell with his flying knee knockout over Danny Roberts. Pereira was a complete wild man and was not smart at all with the way he fought. That showed in his next fight when he lost a decision to Tristan Connelly after he completely gassed out. He also missed weight in that fight. A flukey DQ loss to Diego Sanchez followed that.
Then, he won five fights in row at 170 which earned him a shot against Stephen Thompson. However, he missed weight badly for the fight and the fight was cancelled. From there Pereira made the decision to move up to middleweight and it’s been all systems go since then.
He’s fought at middleweight three times since October and he has three first round finishes. Most recently, he scored a first round submission over Ihor Potieria last weekend at UFC 301. Now, he’s turn around fast again to fight Dolidze. With a win, you could see Pereira jump inside the top ten at 185.
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