A pair of welterweights has been added to the lineup for the UFC's fall return to Brazil.
Rick Story (14-5 MMA, 7-3 UFC) will meet Brazilian Demian Maia (16-4 MMA, 10-4 UFC) when the UFC heads to Rio de Janeiro in October. Story on Tuesday announced the fight booking on Twitter.
UFC 153 takes place Oct. 13 at HSBC Arena in Rio de Janeiro and airs live on pay-per-view and FX. Featherweight champion Jose Aldo meets challenger Erik Koch in the evening's main event.
Story this past month snapped a two-fight skid when he topped Brock Jardine in a unanimous decision win at UFC on FX 4 in Atlantic City, N.J. That got him back in the win column after back-to-back losses to Charlie Brenneman at UFC on Versus 4 in June 2011 and Martin Kampmann at UFC 139 this past November. Both losses came on points.
The loss to Brenneman put to rest a six-fight win streak that Story had built up over nearly two years – and one that had him being mentioned in welterweight title talk.
Maia is coming off an easy night's work at UFC 148 earlier this month in Las Vegas. In that fight, his welterweight debut, Maia stopped Dong Hyun Kim just 47 seconds into the first round. He slammed Kim, injuring him and getting the TKO victory.
Maia had been in an up-and-down rut at middleweight, going 3-2 since a title fight loss to Anderson Silva at UFC 112. After back-to-back wins over Mario Miranda and Kendall Grove, Maia lost fights to Mark Munoz and Chris Weidman sandwiched around a win over Jorge Santiago.
