UFC 133 – Jorge Rivera reveals fight with Alessio Sakara is off, speculates Constantinos Philippou could fill in

UFC middleweight veteran, Jorge Rivera has revealed his UFC 133 clash with Alessio Sakara is off once again after the Italian striker suffered an injury during training this week, before adding he feels the worlds number one MMA promotion will end up matching him with heavy hitter Constantinos Philippou.

Speaking via MMAFighting.com, Rivera said:

“I thought it was a joke. I couldn’t believe it. I don’t need the excitement, to be honest. It’s coming and I’m sure he’ll (Constantinos Philippou) be pumped. He’s going from the undercard to main card, fighting a bigger name. He’ll come ready to fight. But this keeps me on my toes. I just want to have a good fight and give the fans something to cheer about and get excited about.”

“Honestly what I was saying is I live day-to-day. If I were to get smashed I’d contemplate it. If I smash him, I’ll take the next fight and keep rolling. I’m not going to make rash decisions ahead of time. We’ll see how it goes.”

The two men were originally set to meet at UFC 118 last August only for an arm injury to force Rivera off the card. The Las Vegas based promotion then attempted to put it together for UFC 122 in November, only for Sakara to pull out on the day of the event due to illness. The question remains will these two ever hook it up inside the octagon?


By Michael Pepper.