Lavar Johnson scheduled to replace Mark Hunt against Stefan Struve at UFC 146 – UFC News
According to the recent announcement made by Ultimate Fighting Championship’s management, Lavar Johnson will replace the injured Mark Hunt and is now scheduled take on Stefan Struve in a non-title bout on UFC 146 which will be televised live on May 26, 2012.
The bout will be a part of the five-bout special heavyweight card which will be headlined by the UFC heavyweight championship bout between Junior Dos Santos and Frank Mir.
The octagon for the event will set up at MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada and the non-title bout between Cain Velasquez and Antonio Silva will co-headline the Saturday night showdown.
Lavar recently shared his views in a media interaction and thanked UFC for giving him such a chance to take on a heavy duty opponent like Stefan. Johnson, 34, has been in a total 22 bouts and emerged victorious in 17.
He has nailed a huge 15 opponents by knockout and just two by submission. Lavar is famous for being a knockout specialist and heavily relies on the straight forward one-on-one take on game.
Also known as ‘The Big’, Johnson will enter his third UFC bout and is currently on a two-bout win streak. In his debut bout Johnson nailed Joey Beltran and in his second bout technically knocked out Pat Berry.
Johnson will take Mark Hunt’s place who recently pulled himself out of the engagement due to an inadvertent injury which occurred during a sparring session. While putting forth his thoughts, Lavar stated, “I always seen him in there getting the c**p beaten
out of him and he finds a way to win. He's a tough guy and very durable. It's not going to be a cake walk. But I'm up for the challenge to see where I'm at.”
Johnson thanked the UFC management for such a chance and remarked, “It’s my job to fight, and I just thank the UFC for giving me this opportunity.” Lavar also shared his training methodology and commented, “We’re working more on speed than just trying to
grind stuff out. I think I was trying to be a little too technical, and I was letting guys get off. We went back to the old me, just getting in there and making it a dog fight.”
The bout will be a tough test for Lavar since his opponent Stefan is more experienced than him and is a UFC veteran. Struve has been in a total 28 bouts and emerged victorious in 23.
Stefan, also known as ‘Skyscraper’, is a submission specialist and boasts 15 of his wins by making the opponent submit. At the moment, the odds are in favour of Stefan but if Lavar strives hard to avoid the ground game and collects an early knockout the
outcome might be different.
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