UFC officials announced a welterweight matchup between Demian Maia (17-4) and Jon Fitch (24-4-1, 1NC) for the UFC 156 event that’ll take place on Me die weekend of February 2nd.

UFC 156 will be headlined by the UFC featherweight title fight between Jose Aldo and Frankie Edgar.

Maia has won two fights since dropping down to the welterweight division after fighting exclusively as a middleweight. He submitted Rick Story in his last outing at UFC 153, and stopped Dong Hyun Kim via TKO(injury) at UFC 148. The submission specialist could be one step closer to a welterweight title shot with a win over perennial contender in Jon Fitch. Maia earned a title shot as a middleweight against Anderson Silva at UFC 112, losing via unanimous decision in Abu Dhabi.

Fitch got back to his winning ways at UFC 153 when he outlasting rising Brazilian star Erick Silva to win a unanimous decision. Fitch was coming off of an injury and a devastating KO loss at the hands of Johnny Hendricks at UFC 141 going into the fight with Silva.

Source Demian Maia vs. Jon Fitch added to UFC 156

This is a Fitch fight I'm now interested to watch - he's going to have real trouble grinding Maia and still avoiding submissions, especially with Maia looking so good at WW. Maia title shot after this one? One more?

Yeah this is a cool matchup! With Fitch looking more intense in his last fight I am really looking forward to this. Maia titleshot but maybe Weidman comes in between as he won over Maia I dont know.