Report: “Shogun” returns to Japan for September fight night

Mauricio “Shogun” Rua, one of the biggest stars to emerge from the now defunct Japanese promotion PRIDE, will reportedly be returning to the land that made him famous this September 23. As speculated, the Brazilian legend’s opponent for this UFC Fight Night will be Ovince St. Preux.

This report comes from The MMA Kings on Twitter.

THIS JUST IN: Ovince St. Preux (@003_OSP) vs. Mauricio “Shogun” Rua (@ShogunRua) 2 set for UFC Fight Night: Saitama, Japan #UFC pic.twitter.com/mCETqpn2di

— The MMA Kings (@mma_kings) July 6, 2017

Shogun and St. Preux have fought once before, back in November of 2014. On that night, St. Preux shocked with a crushing, first-round knockout of the legend.

Since then Shogun has not lost, rebounding with a unanimous decision win over Brazilian rival Antonio Rogerio Nogueira, a split decision defeat of American wrestler Corey Anderson, and most recently, a fantastic third-round TKO of the durable Gian Villante. The legend is currently 25-10 overall.

St. Preux, meanwhile, has had a tougher time of late. Since his massive win over Shogun, he has been hot and cold, defeating Pat Cummins, Rafael “Feijao” Cavalcante and Marcos Rogério de Lima, and losing to Glover Teixeira, Jon Jones, Jimi Manuwa and most recently, Volkan Oezdemir. He’s now 20-10 in sum.

It is not known whether this Shogun vs. St. Preux rematch will serve as the card’s headliner.

As of this writing, no other bouts have been announced for this card, though we can expect that to change in the coming weeks.

This article first appeared on BJPenn.com on 7/5/2017.