Sydney based Mark Hunt has been given the opportunity to face Junior dos Santos at UFC 160, only a day after UFC president Dana White publicly announced that Hunt had turned down the fight.
Confirmation of the match-up was first revealed on MMAFighting.com on Saturday which followed a phone conversation Dana White had with Mark Hunt on Thursday after Hunt denied turning down the opportunity.
The 38 year-old steps up as an replacement for Alistair Overeem who earlier in the week was forced to withdraw from the anticipated fight against dos Santos after he suffered a quadricep injury.
Hunt will enter the contest riding a four-fight win streak and is coming off a knockout over Stefan Struve on March 3. The UFC reluctantly secured Hunt’s contract following the purchase of Pride Fighting Championships.
Hunt came into the organisation on the back of five straight losses and the UFC were offering to pay the former K-1 star out of his contract. Hunt declined and unfortunately his UFC career didn’t get off to the best starts as he was submitted by Sean McCorkle. Since then though has defeated the likes of Ben Rothwell, Cheick Kongo and Stefan Struve to get himself into title contention.
UFC 160 will be held at the MGM Grand Arena Casino in Las Vegas, USA on May 25 and will be headlined by the UFC Heavyweight Championship fight between Cain Velasquez and Antonio Silva.
UFC 160:
- Cain Velasquez vs Antonio Silva
- Junior dos Santos vs Mark Hunt
- Glover Teixeira vs Ryan Bader
- Gray Maynard vs T.J Grant
- Khabib Nuramgomedov vs Abel Trujillo
- Gunnar Nelson vs Mike Pyle
- Robert Whittaker vs Colton Smith
- Donald Cerrone vs K.J Noons
- Amir Sadollah vs Stephen Thompson
- Jeremy Stephens vs Estevan Payan
