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By: Jamie Penick, MMATorch Editor-in-Chief
Featherweight Lucas Martins has a fight with Darren Elkins next month at UFC 179, but it wasn't his first choice.
Martins wanted a bout with longtime UFC vet Jeremy Stephens, but Martins alleges that Stephens turned him down as an opponent not on his level in the UFC. However, Martins believes Stephens had other reasons for turning the fight down, and he plans to call him out after UFC 179 in Brazil.
"Jeremy said I'm too weak in the UFC," Martins said last week (via MMAFighting.com). "The truth is, he was scared to fight me. He can run, but he can't hide. We will meet each other in the UFC. I don't get why he wouldn't want to fight me. He underestimated me. But it's OK. We will meet each other one day."
"Inside the Octagon, after I beat Elkins, I will call him out. I'll say 'my friend, you didn't know who I was, so, nice to meet you, my name is Lucas and I want you fighting me in here.'"
Penick's Analysis: A Martins-Stephens fight would be interesting, for sure, but the Elkins matchup is quite good in its own right. Martins has the rare distinction of having won fights in three different divisions in the UFC, and he's been quite entertaining in that stretch. If he keeps it up and picks up a second straight fight at featherweight, he could start to climb the ladder in that division quite quickly.
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Jamie Penick, editor-in-chief
(mmatorcheditor@gmail.com)
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