Richie Vaculik has had yet another opponent change for next week’s UFC Fight Night: Rockhold vs Bisping. As announced on Wednesday by UFC officials, the Sydney based flyweight will now meet Louis Smolka.
Now the third opponent to be announced for the Aussie in the leadup to the event, Smolka (7-1 MMA, 1-1 UFC) will be looking to avoid back-to-back defeats in the promotion, after finding himself on the wrong side of the judge’s scorecards against Chris Cariaso in May. The loss followed the Hawaiian born fighters solid UFC debut in January when outpointed Alptekin Ozkilic. Smolka replaces the injured Neil Seery, who had stepped in for Vaculik’s original opponent Ray Borg.
After dropping his UFC debut to Justin Scoggins in December, Vaculik (10-2 MMA, 1-1 UFC) made a successful return to form with a hard fought decision win over Roldan Sancha’an in New Zealand.
UFC Fight Night: Rockhold vs Bisping takes place on November 8 at the Allphones Arena in Sydney and will be headlined by a middleweight contenders clash between Michael Bisping and Luke Rockhold.
Also of note, Aljamain Sterling has arrived in Australia however is now without an opponent after first Frankie Saenz got injured and then his replacement Michael Imperator had his contract ripped up after homophobic and racist comments came to light from a reality show he previously featured on. The bantamweight fighter is still hoping a replacement can be found.
Main Card:
- Luke Rockhold vs Michael Bisping
- Ross Pearson vs Al Iaquinta
- Robert Whittaker vs Clint Hester
- Soa Palelei vs Walt Harris
Preliminary Card:
- Jake Matthews vs Vagner Rocha
- Anthony Perosh vs Guto Inocente
- Dylan Andrews vs Sam Alvey
- Richie Vaculik vs Louis Smolka
- Vik Grujic vs Chris Clements
- Luke Zachrich vs Daniel Kelly
- Jumabieke Tuerxun vs Marcus Brimage
