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By: Jamie Penick, MMATorch Editor-in-Chief
The UFC's third trip to Toronto, Ontario, Canada now has its main event and co-main event, as the UFC on Friday announced the top two bouts on the UFC 152 card on September 22.
Headlining the night's card will be the first ever UFC Flyweight Championship bout, with Demetrious Johnson and Joseph Benavidez squaring off for the right to be the UFC's first 125 lb. Champion. In addition to that bout, a middleweight matchup between Michael Bisping and Brian Stann will serve as the night's co-main event.
Johnson and Benavidez earned their spots in the first Flyweight Championship bout as part of a four man tournament to kick off the division. Benavidez knocked out Yasuhiro Urushitani in March to kick off the series, but Johnson needed an extra fight to finish things off against Ian McCall.
The two fought to a draw in March at UFC on FX 2 in Australia, but the scores were mistakenly read in Johnson's favor, taking away the option of a "sudden death" round that should have come at the event. Because of that, the two met a second time at UFC on FX 3 in June, with Johnson earning a more convincing decision the second time around.
Bisping and Stann have called each other out in the last month, and the UFC has booked the matchup for this card. Both suffered their last losses at the hands of Chael Sonnen, with Stann losing decisively by submission, and Bisping suffering a much closer loss by decision in January at UFC on Fox 2. Stann rebounded from his loss to Sonnen with a stoppage over Alessio Sakara in April, while Bisping has been recovering from a minor surgical procedure.
UFC 152 will also feature a welterweight bout between a returning B.J. Penn and rising star Rory MacDonald.
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Jamie Penick, editor-in-chief
(mmatorcheditor@gmail.com)
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