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Friday, Sep 02, 2011

Velasquez vs. dos Santos to Headline First UFC on Fox Card, Champion “Excited About The Opportunity”

By FCF Staff

A heavyweight title fight between UFC champion Cain Velasquez and number one contender Junior dos Santos will headline the promotion’s first event to be broadcast on the Fox Network, November 12th in Anaheim.

According to reports, the five round championship fight will be the only bout that is broadcast live from the card, as Fox has allocated just one hour time slot for the event. If the fight ends early, the UFC has announced that a taped fight from earlier in the night could be aired.

Before the UFC and Fox broadcast deal was announced, it was widely expected that Velasquez would fight dos Santos at UFC 139 in San Jose on November 19th. The UFC has confirmed that November 139 will go ahead in San Jose as planned, however, the card’s main event has yet to be announced.

In a follow up ‘tweet’ from the official UFC Twitter account, the promotion quoted President Dana White stating that negotiations with Velasquez (pictured) and dos Santos to move from a PPV card to the Fox broadcast, reportedly took “3 ½ minutes.” Many of the promotion’s top fighters receive proceeds from PPV revenues.

When FCF reached Velasquez for a comment about today’s announcement, the champion said he was “excited about the opportunity” and that “everything looked good” in terms of having the bout moved from a PPV card to Fox.

Today’s confirmation comes approximately two weeks after the UFC and Fox announced that the two companies had signed a seven year broadcast agreement.

Velasquez (9-0) will be competing for the first time since last October, when he stopped Brock Lesnar in the first round to become UFC champion. The undefeated fighter has been on the sidelines for much of 2011 due to a shoulder injury.

Dos Santos (13-1) is coming off a unanimous decision win over Shane Carwin in June, to extend his win streak to eight.

posted by FCF Staff @ 1:31 pm
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