Mitch Clarke kicking John Maguire (photo via Josh Hedges/ UFC/ZUFFA/Getty Images)

By Kelsey Mowatt

Mitch Clarke will return to the Octagon for the first time since last April at UFC Fight Night 90, and when he does, he’ll face another lightweight who has no shortage of buzz tied to them.

Clarke has been booked to fight Joseph Duffy at the July 7th event, and although he’s coming off a decision loss to Dustin Poirier, prior to that the Irish fighter had won four straight. In Clarke’s last outing, he was decisioned by surging lightweight, Michael Chiesa, and prior to that, the Canadian choked out the dangerous Al Iaquinta. So, in other words, Clarke is getting used to facing the division’s rising commodities.

“You know, you can look at it two ways,” Clarke (11-3) said on a recent episode of Full Contact Fighter Radio. “You can look at it, you know, they just want to have me beat up, or I’m the guy who, you know, they believe in my skills obviously, if they’re going to put me in against tough guys. Even before Al Iaquinta, it was John Maguire, who is very tough. Everyone was talking about how he would look at lightweight, and they threw him in against me, and I put him through the meat grinder, and then he’s bumped out of the UFC.”

“So, the thing is, they obviously believe that I’m at a certain level of skill, and I believe I’m a certain level of skill,” the 30 year-old added. “Just because Michael won that fight, I made it a fight. I don’t think it would look very good if I was like ‘hey, can I fight some bum?’ It’s the UFC. You shouldn’t be fighting bums. All of us are climbing to the top, and all of us want to get to the top. You don’t get there by beating cans. So, for me, it’s not a big deal.”

Duffy (14-2) arrived in the UFC last year, and did so with considerable hype, due to his impressive record which includes a 2010 win over Conor McGregor.

“Everyone talks about how good he is, but realistically, why does everyone know his name? Everybody knows Joseph Duffy’s name; it’s because he beat Conor McGregor six years ago. Well, guess what, that was six years ago. It doesn’t matter, it doesn’t mean anything; it was in a promotion in England or was it in Ireland? Doesn’t matter. It was such a long time ago…”

UFC FN 90 will take place at the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas.