Ray Borg (photo via UFC.com)

By Kelsey Mowatt

Ray Borg has been booked to fight Justin Scoggins at UFC 196, and “The TazMexican Devil” wasn’t surprised at all when he received the call to fight the “Tank”.

The bout will feature two of the 125 division’s youngest and most promising talents, as when the fight takes place, it will pit the 22 year-old Borg up against the 23 year-old Scoggins. So in other words, if the fight didn’t happen now, chances are, Borg and Scoggins would have crossed paths sooner than later.

Recently Borg appeared on Full Contact Fighter Radio, and when he was asked if saw this fight coming down the line, he stated:

“‘It’s such a small division I figured that at some point it was going to happen,” said Borg. “And I kind of thought it was going to happen a little bit sooner considering we were both so highly touted in the beginning, but I’m glad it’s happening now. It’s going to be a fun fight.”

As Borg noted, he and Scoggins quickly buzzed the pundits and hardcore fans after arriving in the UFC. In Borg’s UFC debut, he faced top ten ranked contender Dustin Ortiz, and lost via split decision. Since then he’s gone on to win three straight and is now ranked #11 at 125.

Scoggins, on the other hand, defeated Richie Vaculik and Will Campuzano in his first two UFC bouts, and many believed he would fast track to the top 15. But, Scoggins proceeded to drop bouts to John Moraga and the aforementioned Ortiz, before defeating Josh Sampo. As a result, Scoggins is currently on the outside looking in on the flyweight ranks.

“He got thrown to the wolves and they tried to build him pretty quickly by throwing him to those top level guys right away,” said Borg, while discussing the fact that perhaps some have been quick to look past Scoggins, considering his losses came against top contenders.

“So I think after that people kind of jumped off the hype train of Scoggins, and thinking he probably wasn’t as good as everyone thought. But he’s still ended up being very talented and people were just kind of judging him based off his two losses, which were two top ranked opponents.”

UFC 196 will take place at the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada. In the main event, heavyweight champ Fabricio Werdum will battle Cain Velasquez.