Gonzaga vs Dos Santos and Tibau vs Trinaldo set for UFC 153

A heavyweight fight between Gabriel Gonzaga (13-6) and Geronimo Dos Santos (31-14), as well as a lightweight bout between Francisco “Massaranduba” Trinaldo (11-1) and Gleison Tibau (25-8) are set for the preliminary card of UFC 153. UFC officials recently added the fights to the official bout lineup.

UFC 153 takes place Oct. 13 at HSBC Arena in Rio de Janeiro with a main card airing live on pay-per-view. Prelims are expected to air on FX and stream on Facebook. In the main event, featherweight champion Jose Aldo defends his title against top contender Erik Koch.

Gonzaga went 3-5 in his first stint with the UFC, including a legendary head-kick knockout of Mirko “Cro Cop” Filipovic. That got him a heavyweight title shot against Randy Couture, but he lost via TKO at UFC 74. In January, he returned to the company at UFC 142, where he stopped Ednaldo Oliveira with a first-round submission.

Dos Santos, a former sparring partner of Lyoto Machida, has 23 of his 31 career wins by knockout. In 2010, he fought Josh Barnett for Impact FC, but lost by first-round submission. He also has a fight against Junior dos Santos on his resume, a first-round TKO cut stoppage.

Trinaldo fought on “The Ultimate Fighter: Brazil” as a middleweight. He made his UFC debut at UFC 147 in June and knocked out Delson Heleno for his fifth straight win. He drops two divisions to compete at his natural weight class of lightweight.

Tibau was on a 5-1 run in the octagon with three straight wins before falling to Khabib Nurmagomedov at UFC 148 in July. His UFC resume includes wins over Josh Neer, Jeremy Stephens, Caol Uno and Terry Etim.

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