Junior dos Santos vs. Stipe Miocic to Co-Main Event UFC 173

A heavyweight bout between former title holder Junior dos Santos and up-and-coming contender Stipe Miocic has been added to UFC 173, a UFC official confirmed to MMAWeekly.com on Monday evening.

As first reported by the Las Vegas Review Journal, the dos Santos-Miocic affair will stand as the co-main event for the card, which is scheduled for May 24 in Las Vegas.

Coming off the third fight of a trilogy with heavyweight champ Cain Velasquez, dos Santos (16-3) enters UFC 173 looking to get back on the winning track. Most recently, dos Santos came up short in his bid to regain the heavyweight title when he lost via technical knockout to Velasquez last October at UFC 166.

Miocic (11-1) earned a second consecutive win in his last time in the Octagon, going the distance and claiming a unanimous decision over Gabriel Gonzaga at UFC on FOX 10 in January.

UFC 173 is scheduled to be headlined by a middleweight title fight between champion Chris Weidman and challenger Lyoto Machida. Machida was a recent replacement for Vitor Belfort, who stepped down from the fight in the fallout of a Nevada State Athletic Commission ban on therapeutic use exemptions for testosterone-replacement therapy.