By Michael Owens
A pair of up-and-coming lightweights will face off in February at UFC 169, the official UFC news Twitter account has announced. Bobby Green and Abel Trujillo may not be the most well known ’55ers on the UFC roster, but this is a match you should definitely take note of.
Green is 3-0 in the UFC now, with eye-catching boxing as the highlight of his skill set. The jury was out on his ability to cut it on the big stage, but a seven-fight win streak in Strikeforce and the UFC has started to show he is legit.
He picked up the biggest win of his career last week on Fox against Pat Healy. That is no mean feat under normal circumstances, but the fact he did it on short notice is even more impressive. He shut down ‘Bam Bam’s’ grinding style to win a convincing decision. His previous win was a bizarre TKO of James Krause, but his first Octagon was an eye-opening submission of another grinder, Jacob Volkmann.
Abel Trujillo also picked up a win at last week’s Fox event. He even looked set to pick up a £50,000 bonus check for his barbaric KO of Roger Bowling before Demetrious Johnson got to work. Judging by his UFC fights so far, Trujillo comes to the cage to kill, and he will test the intestinal fortitude and ability to cope with pressure of any 155 pounder.
He is a slightly less impressive 2-1-1 in the UFC, but his only loss came against Russian grappler Khabib Nurmagomedov in May. There is certainly no shame in that, as another win for Nurmagomedov could well set him up for a title shot.
Look out for some serious power coming from Trujillo, who could well try to make this into an all out brawl. On any other event this could be a lock for fight-of-the night honours, but UFC 169 is looking like one of the most stacked cards in history at this point with two title fights so there will be some stiff competition. I would not bet against this being an absolute barnburner though, with the winner moving on to book himself a significant opponent later in 2014.
It’s really great to see such a quick turnaround of exciting fighters trying to build a bit of momentum with winning streaks, and hopefully this is a sign of things to come thanks to an abundance of fight cards in the coming months.
UFC 169 will take place on February 1 from New Jersey. The current lineup looks like this:
UFC Bantamweight Championship unification bout – Dominick Cruz vs. Renan Barão
UFC Featherweight CHampionship – José Aldo vs. Ricardo Lamas
Heavyweight – Frank Mir vs. Alistair Overeem
Flyweight – Ali Bagautinov vs. John Lineker
Lightweight – Bobby Green vs. Abel Trujillo
Flyweight – Chris Cariaso vs. Kyoji Horiguchi
Middleweight – Nick Catone vs. Tom Watson
Lightweight – John Makdessi vs. Alan Patrick
Lightweight – Al Iaquinta vs. Kevin Lee
Lightweight – Tony Martin vs. Rashid Magomedov
Welterweight – Neil Magny vs. Gasan Umalatov
