Masvidal named as Daley’s opponent for 11 Sept
British Muay Thai striker Paul Daley will be facing fighter Jorge Masvidal on 11 September in Amarillo, Texas. Both fighters are coming off one win. The fight will be put on by the Shark Fights promotion on their 13th event, which is being broadcast on pay-per-view. Promoters announced the news late Tuesday afternoon, after having earlier announced Daley would be on the card against a then-unnamed opponent.
The fight will take place at welterweight, which will be a change of pace for Masvidal, who normally competes at 155lb rather than the 170lb limit, although he has also fought at 160lb recently. Still, size-wise there will be quite a difference between the fighters as Daley was a fairly large welterweight, having struggled to make weight in the past, and Masvidal will be one of the smaller fighters in the division.
Daley and Masvidal join an increasingly impressive card, which now features well-known fighters such as Keith Jardine, Rameau Thierry Sokoudjou and Drew McFedries amongst others.
Daley, one of the top welterweights in the world, is coming off of a win over Daniel Acacio at Impact FC 2 in Australia, where he stopped the Brazilian with an elbow strike. Before that he’d fought three fights in the UFC, winning two high-profile fights with devastating knockouts until he lost to Josh Koscheck in a title eliminator bout. His sucker-punching of Koscheck after the bell got him banned from the UFC, the largest MMA promoter in the world.. This will be his second fight in a regional promotion, but he is reportedly on the cusp of signing a major deal with Strikeforce, the second largest American MMA promoter.
Masvidal has fought for the who’s who in the MMA world, accumulating a 24-9-2 record along the way, despite being just 25. He holds notable wins over fighters like Joe Lauzon and Yves Edwards. He’s known for coming from a street-fighting background and fighting with an aggressive brawling style, which has produced its fair-share of highlight-reel Kos. He made the semi-finals of Bellator’s lightweight tournament where, after dominating Toby Imada for over two rounds, he fell victim to what is universally considered to be the best submission of 2009, an inverted flying triangle choke which saw him crumple unconscious to the canvas. He recently defeated Naoyuki Kotani by split decision.
He’ll unquestionably be coming in as a heavy underdog against Daley, but the crushing power possessed by Daley and the style of Masvidal should provide fans with an exciting stand-up war.
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