BJJ legend Rodolfo Vieira has just been given another chance to meet Armen Petrosyan in the cage as the fight between them has now been rescheduled for UFC on ESPN+ 94 on February 10th, 2024. They were supposed to fight earlier this year at UFC Sao Paulo, but the fight fell through at the very last minute. Very few fights in the history of the MMA have ever collapsed as late as this one did in fact, because the live broadcast of the event was actually ongoing when Petrosyan withdrew from the fight. The card had already begun when the commentators revealed that Petrosyan had apparently fallen sick backstage and could not walk out to the cage.
It was a truly bizarre turn of events and nobody could have predicted that outcome, but at least fans will get a conclusion to the build-up for that fight after all. It’s certainly an interesting fight for the middleweight division, as Vieira and Petrosyan find themselves in similar circumstances in the stacked division. They both started out their combat sports careers under different rulesets before eventually making the transition to MMA later in life. Vieira is an ADCC world champion with several IBJJF World Championship gold medals in his collection, while Petrosyan is a veteran Muay Thai fighter who was once a world champion in his own right.
They both started out their MMA careers well and were promising prospects by the time they made it to the UFC, as Petrosyan was 6-1 and Vieira was 5-0. They’ve experienced some setbacks since then though and both men currently own 9-2 professional records, but they are both coming off wins as well. This fight between Rodolfo Vieira and Armen Petrosyan is a classic striker v grappler matchup and is a great chance for both of them to prove they can handle opponents who excel where they don’t. A convincing win here would put either of them in a great position to start climbing the ranks in the UFC middleweight division.