UFC
UFC on Fox 4 card adds two heavyweight bouts in Thompson-De Fries, Mitrione-Broughton
May 9, 2012 - 2:10:16 PM UFC on Fox 4 card adds two heavyweight bouts in Thompson-De Fries, Mitrione-Broughton

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By: Jamie Penick, MMATorch Editor-in-Chief

Two heavyweight matchups are coming to the UFC on Fox 4 card this August, as MMAWeekly.com reports that Oli Thompson vs. Philip De Fries and Matt Mitrione vs. Rob Broughton have been added to the event.

Thompson made his UFC debut in March at UFC on FX 3 in Australia, but the Englishman had his five fight winning streak snapped by Shawn Jordan. He was supposed to face De Fries in his UFC debut in 2011, but an injury took him out of the UFC 138 event in November.

De Fries instead faced Broughton on that event, whom he defeated by decision. However, he too had a lengthy winning streak snapped in his next fight, losing for the first time in his ten fight career to Stipe Miocic at UFC on Fuel 1 in February.

Mitrione is returning for the first time since suffering the first loss of his career last October. After racking up five straight wins in the UFC, Mitrione dropped a decision to Cheick Kongo at UFC 137. He'll now try to rebound from that loss against Broughton, who has lost two straight fights in the UFC and hasn't fought since his bout with De Fries.

UFC on Fox 4 is headlined by the middleweight debut of Bellator Champ Hector Lombard against Brian Stann, and takes place in Los Angeles on August 4.

Penick's Analysis: Neither matchup is especially exciting for the heavyweight division, but they're solid enough matchups for the preliminary card. Thompson's loss to Jordan came by a brutal knee in the second round, but he was competitive in the fight prior to that. De Fries got blitzed by Miocic in February, so he'll look to bounce back from that. Broughton hasn't been particularly impressive thus far in his UFC run, and while Mitrione had a very nice run of stoppages, the Kongo fight showed some holes that needed to be worked on.