The Ultimate Fighting Championship's middleweight division just got some depth and a potential new challenger for middleweight champion Anderson Silva.
Former PRIDE fighter and current SpiritMC champion Denis Kang has signed a four-fight deal with the UFC, American Top Team General Manager Richie Guerriero today confirmed with MMAjunkie.com (www.mmajunkie.com).
Kang, 31, will likely make his octagon debut in early 2009.
Coming off a devastating KO of Marvin Eastman is a good way to bring over Denis Kang, who gained his recognition from his PRIDE days where he had notable wins over Murilo Rua and Mark Weir in their 183 pound division. As far as how Kang would stack up against the current crop of Middleweight contenders, I think he'll definitely have problems with some of the more well rounded fighters such as Dan Henderson, Nathan Marquardt, and even Michael Bisping. He, of course, has gone 2-1 in 2008, losing in the opening round of the Dream Middleweight Grand Prix to future winner Gegard Mousasi but picking up two knockout victories over Jae Young Kim and the aforementioned Marvin Eastman in SpiritMC and Raw Combat, respectively. It will be interesting to see who he's matched up against first in the UFC and whether they will try to rush him into title contention early like they did with guys like Mirko Cro Cop, Quinton Jackson, and Anderson Silva.
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