Diego Sanchez vs. Clay Guida tapped for June's The Ultimate Fighter 9 Finale
by MMAjunkie.com Staff on Mar 05, 2009 at 10:35 am ET
Surging UFC lightweights Diego Sanchez (20-2 MMA, 9-2 UFC) and Clay Guida (25-9 MMA, 5-3 UFC) have verbally agreed to meet at The Ultimate Fighter 9 Finale.
The event, which concludes the upcoming ninth season of "The Ultimate Fighter," takes place June 20 at The Pearl in the The Palms Las Vegas and airs on Spike TV.
The bout was first reported by Sherdog.
A source close to the event today told MMAjunkie.com (
www.mmajunkie.com) a fight between Guida and Josh Neer (originally pitched to UFC officials by Neer himself) had also been considered for the event, though it never came to fruition.
The upcoming event, set to air on Spike TV, also features the welterweight and lightweight finales for the upcoming ninth season of "TUF." The show, which debuts April 1, features a U.S. vs. U.K. squad with Dan Henderson heading the American team and Michael Bisping leading the British squad.
Sanchez, "The Ultimate Fighter 1" middleweight winner, recently made the drop from welterweight to lightweight and defeated Joe Stevenson via unanimous decision at UFC 95. Sanchez has now won three consecutive fights since back-to-back losses to Josh Koscheck and Jon Fitch in 2007.
Guida, meanwhile, returns to competition looking for his fourth consecutive win. After launching his UFC career with a 2-3 record, Guida looked as though he might be a gatekeeper for the division. However he's since rattled off a TKO victory over Samy Schiavo and decision wins over former "TUF" winners Mac Danzig and Nate Diaz to emerge as a legitimate 155-pound contender.
As MMAjunkie.com recently reported, Anthony Johnson (7-2 MMA, 4-2 UFC) and John Howard (11-4 MMA, 1-0 UFC) have also verbally agreed to meet at the June 20 event.
It could go either way but I'm going with the Nightmare....
