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With Anderson Silva unable to be ready for a UFC 95 fight, the promotion has turned to its lightweights to headline the card. Diego Sanchez will face Joe Stevenson in the main event at London’s O2 Arena Feb 21.Sanchez was on the cusp of a 170lb title shot when he was scheduled to face Thiago Silva at UFC 90 this past October. Unfortunately for him, a rib injury forced him off of the card. Josh Koscheck stepped in to face Alves on short notice, and proceeded to get pummeled by Alves for three rounds. An interesting thing to note is that Koscheck was the first guy to hand Sanchez a professional loss. So the guy who beat him got beat by another guy…that may have spurred Sanchez on to a drop in weight.

Stevenson is like a top 5 gate keeper of the 155′ers, always the bridesmaid but never the bride…yet. Stevenson is one tough hombre and is still a pup at 26 years of age. He’s in a mini-slump now, having lost 2 out of his last 3 fights.

Both these guys can go and this should be a non-stop war, both on the ground and on the feet. You sure could do worse for a main event!

The Ultimate Fighter Season 1 Middleweight winner Diego Sanchez has notifed the UFC that he is willing to drop down to lightweight if they can line up a fight for him.

Sanchez initially resisted the drop in weight, preferring to tangle with the big boys at 170lbs. With six straight wins in the UFC, who could blame him? But then he ran into Josh Koscheck (along with some outside issues, albeit) and then Jon Fitch, who are big, big dudes. Next, he was scheduled to fight another monster welterweight in Thiago Alves at UFC 89 but a rib injury forced him to withdraw. The first guy to defeat Sanchez, Josh Koscheck, stepped in on short notice…and proceeded to get his ass handed to him by the bigger, stronger, Alves.

That may or may not have factored into Diego’s decision to drop down, but at 155lbs he could expedite his path to a UFC title, which is his ultimate goal. There are lots of new, fresh and exciting match ups for Sanchez at 155lbs, including BJ Penn, Roger Huerta, Sean Sherk, and a rematch with Kenny Florian would be money in the bank.

Incidentally, he wants to achieve said goal so bad, that he dumped former UFC ring girl, Ali Sonoma in order to focus solely on his title quest. Dude must want it real bad to part ways with Sonoma, especially since the two had been together for about two years.