UFC 83 in Montreal, Quebec, Canada is shaping up to be one of the biggest UFC events and its still over two months away! According to a UFC press release, the event sold over 13,000 UFC Fight Club presale tickets in the first 24 hours of availability which has caused the UFC to not have a newsletter presale and jump straight into general public ticket sales. The main event will feature the biggest Canadian name in MMA today in Georges “Rush” St-Pierre challenging the current UFC Welterweight champion Matt “The Terror” Serra.
By the time the fight between St-Pierre and Serra takes place, it’ll be over a year since Serra’s last fight while St-Pierre on the other hand has had two fights against top 5 Welterweight opponents, including quite possibly the greatest Welterweight in UFC history Matt Hughes.
Serra was originally scheduled to face St-Pierre at UFC 79: Nemesis on December 29th, but was forced to pull out due a back injury. St-Pierre would go on to submit replacement Matt Hughes in the 2nd round.
UFC 83: Serra vs. St-Pierre 2 will feature ten bouts in all including former UFC Middleweight champion Rich “Ace” Franklin taking on Travis Lutter as well as Michael Bisping.
Here’s how the card breaks down:
UFC Welterweight Championship
Matt Serra (c) vs. Georges St-Pierre
– Rich Franklin vs. Travis Lutter
– Nate Quarry vs. Kalib Starnes
– Charles McCarthy vs. Michael Bisping
– Mark Bocek vs. Mac Danzig
– Joe Doerksen vs. Jason MacDonald
– Rich Clementi vs. Sam Stout
– Kuniyoshi Hironaka vs. Jonathan Goulet
The final two bouts have not yet been made official, but from what we’re hearing it’ll be:
– Patrick Cote vs. TBA
– Ed Herman vs. Demian Maia
According to an E-Mail to UFC newsletter members, the UFC is working on coming up with a viewing party for those who can’t get tickets to the event. We’ll have more on UFC 83 as we get it.