‘The Crank’ vs Aussie in UFC 121

The Marianas’ Frank “The Crank” Camacho is hoping to earn a historic win in his second fight in the Ultimate Fighting Championship when he faces Damien Brown of Australia in UFC Fight Night 121 in Sydney, Australia next month.

Frank “The Crank” Camacho will be making his second appearance in the Ultimate Fighting Championship arena when he goes up against Australia’s Damien Brown in UFC Fight Night 121 next month in New South Wales, Australia.

The Camacho-Brown fight will open up an 11-bout card that features former world heavyweight champions Marcin Tybura (16-2, 7 knockouts) of Poland and Brazilian Fabricio Werdum (22-7, 6 Kos) in the main event and set on Nov. 19 at the Qudos Bank Arena in Sydney.

Tybura is a two-time heavyweight champion in Russian mixed martial arts promotion M-1 (Global and Grand Prix), while Werdum was the UFC world title holder for the 265-lb weight division before losing by knockout to Croatian-American Stipe Miocic in UFC 198 last year.

In his second UFC fight, Camacho (20-5, 15 KOs) is hoping to bounce back from his debut loss to Jingliang “The Leech” Li (13-4, 4KOs) in UFC Fight Night 111 on June 17 at the Singapore Indoor Stadium in Singapore. He made the announcement of his duel against the Aussie in a video posted on his Facebook page after organizers confirmed that he’ll be fighting in November. Saipan Tribune contacted Camacho for comments about his upcoming bout, but he has yet to respond at press time.

During his UFC debut, Camacho was a last minute replacement against Li and lost by unanimous decision after three hard-fought rounds.

Meanwhile, this will be the third time that Brown (17-10, 3 KOs, 2-2 UFC) will be fighting in front of a hometown crowd and his encounter with Camacho will come after his win by split decision against Guam’s Jon Tuck (10-4, 4 KOs, 4-4 UFC) in UFC Fight Night 101 at Rod Laver Arena in Melbourne last year.

Camacho knows Brown has an advantage with the hometown crowd behind him that’s why the former hopes the early training camp with strength and conditioning coach Steve Oshiro and ONE Fighting Championship heavyweight champ Brandon Vera would help him win over the Land Down Under bet.

Vera (15-7, 10 KOs, 8-7 UFC) is the reigning heavyweight title holder of Singapore-based MMA outfit ONE FC. He won the inaugural title after beating Paul Cheng (5-2, 3 KOs) of Chinese-Taipei by KO in ONE FC 36: Spirit of Champions in 2015.

Oshiro, in a separate video, said they have been pushing Camacho to test what he is capable of. “Basically we’re trying to get [him] stronger. And he’s letting me test his mettle. He works hard and he let me push him to his limit,” Oshiro said.

“We get him out of his comfort zone. We have days where we focus on strength and we have days where we’re doing things that are dynamic. We’re working also on his explosiveness, where he could go three or five rounds and recover quickly,” he added.

Vera, on the other hand, said this would be Camacho’s first time to have a full training camp, which is a huge deal for the Marianas fighter.

“He knows who his opponent is and he is in better shape already than he was going into the fight the last time. He’s fighting at 155. It was awesome to watch him do his thing. He’s pushing himself and going super hard for this fight,” added Vera, who met Camacho through Brazilian jiu-jitsu master Lloyd Irvin 10 years ago.