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[Warchief]

Rising heavyweight contender Cheick Kongo (11-3-1 MMA, 4-1 UFC) may meet veteran fighter Heath Herring (27-13 MMA, 1-2 UFC) at UFC 82 — an event that takes place March 1 at Nationwide Arena in Columbus, Ohio.

A source close to Herring told MMAjunkie.com (UFC News & Rumors - MMA News - UFC Fighters - UFC Event Recaps and Previews - MMAjunkie.com) that the fighter had been offered the rumored bout, plans to accept it, but hasn’t yet signed to make it official.

Neither Herring nor Kongo could immediately be reached for comment.

For Kongo, a victory could thrust the French fighter into immediate title contention. Aside from a close split-decision loss to Carmelo Marrero at UFC 64, Kongo has posted a spotless record in the UFC. The success peaked with an upset unanimous-decision victory over Mirko “Cro Cop” Filipovic at UFC 75 in September.

Kongo had been a rumored opponent for former UFC heavyweight champion Tim Sylvia. Sylvia himself even campaigned for the fight in a post-UFC 77 press conference. However, the former champ was instead tapped to fight Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira at UFC 81 next month for the UFC’s interim heavyweight title.

As for Herring, he’ll return to the octagon for the first time since his July loss to Nogueira. After flooring the former PRIDE heavyweight champion with a first-round head kick, Herring backed off from his opponent and allowed him time to recover. Nogueira stormed back for the unanimous-decision victory, and Herring opted to take a short break from competition after the loss.

Herring originally signed on with the UFC a year ago after the UFC purchased — and disbanded — the World Fighting Alliance promotion. He made his UFC debut with an upset loss to Jake O’Brien in January but rebounded for an entertaining unanimous-decision victory over Brad Imes in April.

UFC 82 is headlined by a title fight between UFC middleweight champion Anderson Silva and former PRIDE standout Dan Henderson. For the latest UFC 82 fight card, check out the UFC Rumors section of MMAjunkie.com.

Source: Heath Herring Offered UFC 82 Fight with Cheick Kongo -- MMAjunkie.com

[jasonIndiana]

i hope kongo wins this and gets a little more credit and gets a title shot.

[Punk Ass]

Interesting matchup. Kongo should win this pretty easily IMO.

Kongo by KO 2nd

[sandywh]

If this is true, I'm disappointed. Kongo has done what he's needed to do to be in the title picture. Beating Herring does nothing to improve his standing. I they can't come up with anything better than Herring, why not keep him on the shelf until Vera or AA are healthy / ready? Kongo has earned better than this.

[jkilla374]

I'm picking Herring, just a hunch.

[Monsterman]

I think this is actually a great fight for Herring, both stylewise and b/c Kongo is ranked much higher than him . If Kongo hasn´t improved his takedown d Heath should take him down quite easily and that´s what he is best at. Gnp and subs from top.
Kongo by fast KO or herring by tko/sub, but i don´t really see this going to a decision.

[The Iceman]

Let me throw in the facts. Tim lost to Couture and beat Vera but had been riding a 5 fight win streak beating fighters like Monson,Arlovski(2x),Tra Telligman, & Assuerio Silva not to mention he was the champion before the Couture loss. Kongo lost to Marrero and beat & Cro Cop
riding a two fight win streak in the UFC beating Gilbert Aldana & Christian Wellisch. Looking at those stats we can see that Tim clearly deserves the title shot out of these two. Now we throw in big Nog who has fought only 1 time in the UFC and just barely got by Herring but was coming off of a Josh Barnett victory with a record of 30-4-1 so this thing was a huge toss up. So all you can do is pit the two most exciting fighters against each other and give the third person an opportunity after that fight. But my grouch is why throw Kongo in against Herring because a win is certainly not gauranteed and what if Herring get's the decision???????Kongo loses the title shot he should've had in the first place!! lol

[mcptfc2007]

i say if kongo wins he fights for the title, think this would be a good match up, i say winner by tko in the second kongo,

it would also add a very good fight to the already hyped match up of silva and hendo

[da@LARGE]

I'd love to see this match. But Herring won't test Kongo's ground game like McCully would. IMO Kongo has only proved his kick boxing skills so far.

[Monsterman]

Originally Posted by da@LARGE

I'd love to see this match. But Herring won't test Kongo's ground game like McCully would. IMO Kongo has only proved his kick boxing skills so far.

Are you talking about the McCully who almost got subbed by Antoni Hardonk? LOL. Out of Herrings 27 mma victories 16 are by sub and he has faced much better competion than McCully.