UFC Houston goes down on February 21st and yesterday we learned of a really fun featherweight matchup that’ll go down on the card. MMA Fighting’s Mike Heck was the first to report that “50k” Dan Ige (19-10) will look to defend his spot in the rankings against surging contender Melquizael Costa (25-7).
As things currently stand, Ige will make the walk in February as the 14th ranked contender at 145 pounds. The last time we saw Ige was back in July when he lost a decision to former Bellator champion Patricio Pitbull.
Prior to that, Ige had a huge TKO win over Sean Woodson. Overall, Ige is just 2-3 in his last five, but the three losses came against Pitbull and top contenders Diego Lopes and Lerone Murphy. He’ll now be tasked with halting the momentum of Costa.
Costa will look to break into the UFC’s top fifteen next month in Houston. Costa started out 1-2 in his first three fights inside the octagon, however, both of the losses came at lightweight. Following his second lightweight loss, he’s only fought at featherweight.
If you take out the two lightweight losses, Costa is a perfect 6-0 in the UFC including five straight wins ahead of this matchup with Ige. This is a big test for Costa but if he passes, you could be looking at a real threat at 145 pounds.
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