Joseph Benavidez vs. Demetrious Johnson & Michael Bisping vs. Brian Stann Scheduled For UFC 152

Two marquee bouts have been added to UFC 152 in Toronto as Joseph Benavidez and Demetrious Johnson will collide for the inagural flyweight championship and middleweights Michael Bisping and Michael Bisping will throw down in a 185-pound contenders bout.

The two bouts add much needed depth to the Sept. 22 fight card after a rumored heavyweight title bout between Junior dos Santos and Cain Velasquez was pulled from the event.

Both fights were reported by Roger’s Sportsnet correspondent “Showdown” Joe Ferraro. Shortly after the news was confirmed by the UFC Canada official twitter account.

Benavidez (16-2) knocked out Yasuhiro Urushitani in March to earn his place in the flyweight tournament final but has sat on the sidelines for a number of months waiting for the other finalist to be named. The time has finally come for the former two-time bantamweight title challenger and he will be eager to win a world championship in a major organization for the first time.

Johnson (15-2-1) has a more grueling road to the flyweight finals as he was forced to fight Ian McCall twice after the first bout between them was ruled a draw. Fortunately for the Johnson, he was the decisive winner in the rematch and was able to gain more cage time as a flyweight fighter. There were some concerns about a hernia injury to Johnson after his second fight with McCall, but those problems appear to have been resolved.

Bisping (22-4) lost his last fight to Chael Sonnen by razor-thin unanimous decision at UFC on Fox 2 in January. The loss brought an end to Bisping’s four-fight winning streak and forced the British fighter to restart his climb up the middleweight ranks. He was scheduled to fight Tim Boetsch at UFC 149 but pulled out of the bout to undergo minor knee surgery.

Stann (12-4) rebounded from a difficult loss to Chael Sonnen with a hellacious beating of Alessio Sakara at UFC on FUEL TV 2 last April. The former WEC champion has won four of his last five contests and will attempt to continue his climb up the middleweight rankings with another win at UFC 152.

UFC 152 goes down September 22 from the Air Canada Center in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. The event also featured a welterweight bout between rising contender Rory MacDonald and former two-division champion BJ Penn.

The get the latest on UFC 152, click here. For up-to-date versions of all upcoming fight cards, head over to the rumors section.

Mike Bohn, founder and lead writer of FightCove.com, wrote this article. You can follow Mike on Twitter at @FightCoveMike. Also, follow @FightCove on Twitter and “Like” Fight Cove on Facebook.