Clash between veteran middleweight contenders becomes the first fight on the books for the UFC’s return to Madison Square Garden in November.
David Branch is getting his wish.
Following his first-round knockout win over Thiago Santos in April, the former two-division World Series of Fighting champion waited to see how some other key matchups in the division would play out and after ‘Jacare’ Souza dropped a split decision to Kelvin Gastelum in May, Branch made his desires to face the former Strikeforce middleweight champion known.
Initially, the 38-year-old Souza wasn’t interested, which prompted Branch to take aim at the Brazilian on social media:
Yo @JacareMMA I have to order this imitation shit, let me eat some live alligator. Let’s get this done in São Paulo Brazil! @danawhite @Mickmaynard2 @arielhelwani @espn @MMAFighting @MMAjunkieJohn pic.twitter.com/NOihqjTePc
— David Branch (@DavidcBranchMMA) July 1, 2018
But late Thursday evening, ESPN’s Ariel Helwani reported that a bout between the two is in the works for the UFC’s annual trip to Madison Square Garden in November.
While still not official, the matchup makes sense on a lot of levels given the current landscape of the middleweight division.
Branch has gone 2-1 since returning to the UFC following a six-year hiatus where he went 12-1 and claimed both the middleweight and light heavyweight titles under the WSOF banner. After dropping a catchweight bout to Anthony Johnson in May 2012, Branch rattled off 10 consecutive victories, then added a win over Krzysztof Jotko in his first fight back before falling to former champion Luke Rockhold.
A perennial contender since arriving in the UFC a little over five years ago, Souza came out on the wrong side of a split decision verdict against Gastelum in May after collecting a first-round knockout win over Derek Brunson in his 2018 debut.
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The decorated grappler has been a fixture in the Top 5 for quite some time and only ever lost to elite competition, but with a host of younger fighters starting to climb the ranks and veterans like Branch wanting a chance to prove themselves, Souza finds himself in position to play gatekeeper to the upper tier of the middleweight ranks at the moment.
UFC 230 is scheduled to take place on Saturday, November 3 at Madison Square Garden in New York, New York. Stay tuned to FanSided MMA for future fight announcements and all your MMA news