According to his website, former UFC middleweight champion Rich Franklin will now face rising Japanese star Yushin Okami in the main event of UFC 72: Victory in Belfast, Northern Ireland on June 16th.
Martin Kampmann, scheduled to be Franklin’s original opponent, suffered what his trainers believe is a serious knee injury in training and was forced to withdraw from the fight.
According to RichFranklin.com: “I spoke with Monte (my manager) Saturday evening and that conversation eluded to the fact that Kampman may be out. Monday,I was told he would be replaced with a top 10 opponent, and Okami was presented as the likely possibility. Later that day we found out Okami signed. From my end, the contract remains the same, and I’m still excited to fight June 16th in Belfast. My camp will make some changes in my training as well as develop a new strategy to approach this fight. However, I was and will continue preparing a fight…not a person.”
Okami’s in the midst of a six-fight winning streak, with UFC victories over Alan Belcher, Kalib Starnes, Rory Singer, and Mike Swick. He actually holds a win over current UFC middleweight champion Anderson Silva from 2006’s Rumble on the Rock 175-pound tournament, but the referee awarded him the fight when he judged Silva to have kicked Okami illegally and disqualified the Brazilian.
Okami’s freakishly strong for someone with his lanky build, and his ground-and-pound offense is just nasty; of course, the problem with fighting Rich is that he’ll have to get through his fists to even attempt the takedown, and even then, getting him to the mat isn’t particularly easy. And even if he does manage to get him down, a.)he’s got to keep the slimmed-down 205-pounder on his back, and b.)roughly a quarter of Franklin’s career wins have come by submission holds, so there’s always the threat of getting sucked into a choke or armbar.
Okami definitely has a bright future in the UFC, but this kind of a step up in class may be a little too much for the Japanese.
