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Ultimate Fighting Championship light heavyweight contender
Thiago
Santos is looking to get back on the horse sooner than
later. On Friday,
ESPN announced that the UFC was putting together a light
heavyweight bout between Santos (21-8) and Aleksandar
Rakic (13-2). The two would be squaring off at a newly
announced March
6 UFC event, and the location could either be at the UFC Apex
in Las Vegas or on Yas Island in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates,
based on how the COVID-19 pandemic is far from over. This bout
would not be the headliner, and it would be Santos’ first
three-round fight since 2018.
Santos is currently on just the second losing streak in his career,
dropping a split verdict to Jon Jones in
2019 and most recently getting tapped out by Glover
Teixeira in November. The former middleweight is aiming for the
all-time UFC record for the most knockouts, and he is tied with
several fighters including Anderson
Silva and Derrick
Lewis for the second-most, trailing Vitor
Belfort (12). To his credit, eight of the last nine wins for
“Marreta” have come by knockout.
Rakic holds a fairly impressive stoppage rate in his own right of
77 percent – one percent higher than Santos – but he has gone the
distance in each of his last two outings. The Austrian rebounded
from his first decision defeat to take a unanimous verdict over
Anthony
Smith in a three-round headliner in August. Before his split
decision loss to Volkan
Oezdemir, “Rocket” Rakic racked up UFC wins over Francimar
Barroso, Justin
Ledet, Devin Clark
and Jimi
Manuwa in rapid succession.
