Hours after the UFC announced that a light-heavyweight bout between Rashad Evans and Michael Bisping will headline UFC 78, the organization announced an additional bout for the Nov. 17 event: Houston Alexander (8-1 MMA, 2-0 UFC) vs. Thiago Silva (11-0 MMA, 2-0 UFC).UFC 78 takes place at the Prudential Center in Newark, N.J. and is expected to air on pay-per-view.

This latest bout could propel one of two promising 205-pound fighters into title contention.

Akexander splashed onto the UFC scene with a quick 48-second knockout of Keith Jardine at UFC 71. He followed up that KO with an encore performance over Alessio Sakara last month at UFC 75, defeating the Italian in just 61 seconds. The Nebraska-based hip-hop DJ has come out of almost complete obscurity right on the cusp of the light heavyweight division’s elite.

He’ll now take on an undefeated Silva, who also posted victories at UFC 71 and 75. Silva defeated James Irvin in July when his opponent suffered a knee injury early in the bout, and he then posted a second-round TKO of Tomasz Drwal earlier this month in London.

The Alexander-Silva bout will likely make the televised portion of the event.

The UFC also confirmed some rumored fights MMAjunkie.com previously reported, including Karo Parisyan vs. Hector Lombard, David Terrell vs. Ed Herman, and Frankie Edgar vs. Spencer Fisher.

For the latest UFC 78 fight card, check out the UFC Rumors section of MMAjunkie.com.

This entry was posted on Thursday, October 4th, 2007 at 12:49 pm and is filed under Main. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.