Fans have been asking for weeks what the main event of UFC Fight Night 154 would be, and for the longest time, no one knew. The event takes place June 22 at Bon Secours Wellness Arena in Greenville, South Carolina, and with local boy Stephen “Wonderboy” Thompson unavailable to fight so soon after the beating he took against Anthony Pettis in March, it was difficult to predict who would headline the card.
Now we know.
The UFC announced this week that the main event of UFC Fight Night 154 will be an exciting five-round featherweight fight between “The Korean Zombie” Chan Sung Jung and Renato Moicano. These are two of the best featherweights in the world, and this fight should be a lot of fun. It might not be a title fight, but you’d be hard-pressed to see any fans complain about this fight
Jung (14-5) is coming off of a last-second KO loss to Yair Rodriguez at UFC Fight Night 139 in one of the greatest MMA fights of all time. Jung was well on his way to winning the bout until he got caught with an unorthodox upwards elbow by Rodriguez at the 4:59 mark of the fifth round and suffered a shocking knockout loss. The defeat dropped his overall UFC record to 4-2, but the fact he has won six bonuses in six UFC fights says everything about Jung. Win or lose, Jung is one of the most exciting fighters we’ve ever seen in the sport. It will be difficult to recover from such a brutal KO after such a war of a fight, but after taking over six months off to heal up, hopefully he’s 100 percent healthy and good to go for this fight. The loss to Rodriguez knocked him out of the featherweight title picture for the time being, but if he can beat Moicano, he’ll jump right back in the mix.
Moicano (13-2-1) is also coming off of a brutal KO loss, this one to Jose Aldo back at UFC Fight Night 144. Like Jung, Moicano was winning the fight until Aldo turned back the clock and unleashed a violent flurry of strikes that knocked Moicano out. Overall he’s 5-2 in the UFC and still one of the best featherweights in the world. Aside from losses to Aldo and Brian Ortega — there’s no shame to losing to either of those guys — Moicano has been one of the best featherweights in the UFC otherwise. Like Jung, he needs to rebound from his last loss in order to rejoin the featherweight title mix, but there’s no reason to thing he can’t do it.
The odds for this fight should be interesting when they come out, but if I had to guess, Moicano will be slightly favored. Bettors will likely be looking to fade Jung coming off of that bad loss while Moicano is someone who always gets a ton of respect from the betting public. But it’s definitely a close fight that could go either way, and MMA fans in Carolina should be excited they landed such an exciting fight as the main event of UFC Fight Night 154.
