Mike Mathetha, aka “Blood Diamond,” will be City Kickboxing’s newest fighter to enter the UFC in February.
MMA Fighting was the first to report the news that Orion Cosce will be the one to welcome Blood Diamond to the promotion at UFC 271 on February 12. A source close to the situation subsequently confirmed the welterweight fight to Cageside Press.
Mathetha (3-0) enters the UFC following an extensive kickboxing career and will be the latest fighter from City Kickboxing to make it to the UFC. It will be almost a year since the New Zealand fighter had his last fight when he enters the octagon at UFC 271. He defeated Dimps Gillies at Eternal MMA 50 earlier this year in February.
Cosce (7-1) will be looking to bounce back from his first professional loss. In July, he was finished via TKO in his UFC debut by Phil Rowe at UFC on ESPN: Hall vs. Strickland.
No location, venue, or broadcast plan has been officially announced for the February 12 UFC pay-per-view. However, the highly anticipated middleweight championship rematch between Israel Adesanya and Robert Whittaker is rumored to headline the event.
UFC 271 currently looks like this:
- Douglas Silva de Andrade vs. Sergey Morozov
- AJ Dobson vs. Jacob Malkoun
- Kyler Phillips vs. Marcelo Rojo
- Renato Moicano vs. Alexander Hernandez
- Casey O’Neill vs. Roxanne Modafferi
- Vinc Pichel vs. Mark O. Madsen
- Carlos Ulberg vs. Fabio Cherant
- Blood Diamond vs. Orion Cosce
