Mike Stumpf
Welterweights look to rebound from losses
Another welterweight fight has been added to February’s UFC 143 card.
Justin Edwards will meet Mike Stumpf on the pay-per-view’s preliminary card. The UFC announced the fight Friday morning, saying that verbal agreements are in place for the fight. UFC 143 takes place Feb. 4 at the Mandalay Bay Events Center. The Brown-Cope fight is expected to take place on the preliminary card, the bouts from which are likely to air live on FX.
Edwards (7-2, 1-2 UFC) got his UFC start on Season 13 of “The Ultimate Fighter” and lost to eventual winner Tony Ferguson on the show. In his official UFC debut at the TUF 13 Finale in June, he dropped a split decision to Clay Harvison. He rebounded at UFC Fight Night 25 in September with a unanimous decision win over Jorge Lopez, but at UFC 138 last month he lost by decision to John Maguire. His fight at UFC 143 will be his fourth in the UFC in just over eight months – making him one of the promotion’s busiest fighters.
Stumpf (11-3, 0-1 UFC) lost his UFC debut to T.J. Waldburger with a first-round triangle choke at UFC Fight Night 25 and will be looking for his first victory in the promotion. The Midwesterner trains with WEC veteran and current UFC fighter Jeff Curran at Curran Martial Arts in Chicago’s north suburbs. Most of the 28-year-old’s pro fights have come for Curran’s XFO promotion.
UFC 143 features a main event interim welterweight title fight between Carlos Condit and Nick Diaz with champ Georges St-Pierre on the shelf for much of 2012 following surgery on his ACL. Also on the card, Josh Koscheck fights Mike Pierce and Fabricio Werdum, a Pride and Strikeforce veteran, rejoins the UFC to face TUF 10 winner Roy Nelson.
