UFC 148 Gets Rich Franklin vs. Cung Le Booking
Rich Franklin is apparently leaving his place amongst the light-heavyweights and heading back down to the middleweight division he once ruled over for a chance to fight former Strikeforce champion, Cung Le.
UFC officials took to their official twitter yesterday evening with the announcement.
UFC 148 is expected to go down on July 7 from the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas, NV.
Rich Franklin comes back to the middleweight division after not seeing the inside of a cage in over a year. He last fought in February of 2011 in a losing effort to Forrest Griffin. Injuries have plagued the former middleweight champions return. Only one man has stopped Franklin at middleweight and that is current champion, Anderson Silva.
Cung Le will look for his first UFC victory when he steps across from the Cincinnati native that is Rich “Ace” Franklin. He last fought in Wanderlei Silva last November in a very entertaining back and forth bout, but fell short and suffered a TKO defeat at the hands of the “Axe Murderer”.
Read More: Rich Franklin (News), Cung Le (News), UFC
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glad to see ace back at 85 and glad to see cung le back too (though he’d just go back to making b movies).
battle of the busted up and reconstructed noses.
i new he would move back to 185, after getting dropped by Forrest id do the same. i think its a good move, he is way to small for 205.
looks like lil Nog’s gotta find another match…
This is going to be awesome rich franklin should just stay at middleweight and face luke rockhold that would be a good one
Franklin vs. Bisping would be interesting as well!
That would be awesome! Thats the fight i want to see!
Rich Franklin should win this easy…
I like Rich Franklin in this one. Probably bust Cung Le up pretty good en route to a unanimous decision.
Rich will dominate Cung and i like the idea of Rich going to SF and kicking rockholds ass too
id like rockhold to come to the UFC and Rich be his welcome fight to kick his rocky ass back to strikeforce :]
Rich got it
nice matchup
I agree with BJ Pencil^^ lol nice name btw.
yea ace should win easy but he isnt the same fighter he was seriously bisping, vitor, sonnen, munoz, stann, okami, would beat ace easily
wtf are you talking about ace would beat bisping munoz stan and has already beaten okami. i admit vitor has his number and sonnen would wrestle his way to a decision. look at rich’s record his only lost to former ufc champions with the exception of dan henderson who is certanly no chump. ace is eaasily a top 5 mw,
General consensus seems to be that this is going to be an easy nights work for Rich “The Professor” Franklin & unusually , I cant argue !
Franklin should have way way too much for this guy & would have to hold him upright if he is gonna make it into the 3′rd round .
That said I’m not a big fan of Franklins personality .
He crys too much about making weight & wears pink shorts way too often for the common man to relate to him .
I never thought in amillion years i could ever agree with Blah blah. Although I like Franklin he’s agood person. of course everyone is agood person compared to Sonnen. Yeah Franklin pink shorts are just a bit to QUEEEER for me. I would like nothing better than to see franklin get his hands on Bisping. Bisping wouldn’t even be in top 10 if he had to fight Franklin, Vitor, Palharis, weidman, Munoz. Okami, everyone of these fighters who school Bisping.
Its a step down for Franklin to fight Bisping , he has nothing to gain but everything to lose .
Fighting Cung Lee is a different matter , it should be a cake walk for Franklin .
Franklin V Bisping would be very interesting if Bisping could ever put up anything Franklin thought worth winning … personally I think Franklin would be too much for him , I’d expect a stoppage there .
Belcher would also give Bisping a hell of a nights work but I dont think Belcher has mingled often enough with the quality of company Bisping has , Belcher is a few fights away from Bisping just yet .
I wouldnt write of Boetsch just yet , he just needs to wise up with his boxing & not look to that novice uppercut he favors .
Belfort would beat Bisping , probably stop him .
Munoz would probably beat him too but would need to be careful with his boxing defenses , apart from that I’d expect him to do what Sonnen done to him , maybe a bit extra with heavy ground + Pound .
I think Palharies would struggle with Bispings movement & tempo .
I think Okami would struggle with his speed .
Only point I ever made in defense of Bisping is that he is there on Merit as are all UFC fighters , none of em are useless & all deserve respect .
I’m a big Cung fan but his movie career is ruining his fight career. He had an easier fight in his match up with Wandy not having a chin. This will be a battle of the rusties!
Cung has a lot of holes in his game like a suspect chin, cardio, weak ground game and punch his punching power needs work.
I got Franklin by decision or a possible TKO. I like both fighters…
Good to see Franklin back at MW. I think he will be too technical for Le. Especially in the clinch and GnP.
Not often someone mentions clinch and GnP when speaking of being technical.
So many people doubting Cung Le–who is definitely a more technical and varied striker. I’m glad to see Ace at middleweight after being out-bigged by Forest, but this is not going to be a cakewalk. Cung Le will bring a fight.
Cung needs to lay off twinkies and drop to weltweight if he has any delusions about competeing in major leagues. he’s not fighting scott smith anymore