Macau’s first UFC card in over a decade has received quite the main event.
Former champions Petr Yan and Deiveson Figueiredo will meet in a five-round bantamweight bout, as recently announced by the promotion. The fight will headline a card from the newly-opened Galaxy Arena.
The fight sees Figueiredo search for his fourth win since moving up to the bantamweight limit earlier this year. The former flyweight champ joined UFC’s 135-pound division in late 2023 after his second title reign came to an end with a loss to Brandon Moreno.
Recent wins for Figueiredo have quickly established him as one of the division’s top names. Victories over former champ Cody Garbrandt and recent title challenger Marlon Vera have placed him up at fifth in the official bantamweight rankings.
Yan is coming back six months after scoring a unanimous decision win over Song Yadong at UFC 299. Before that victory, he had a run of three consecutive losses, all of which came against recent or current champions in the weight class. The skid included a 2023 defeat against Merab Dvalishvili, plus the loss he took to Aljamain Sterling in 2022 that marked the end of his bantamweight title run.
The winner of the upcoming fight could cement themselves as a frontrunner to challenge for the bantamweight title. While the UFC seems inclined to make a fight between newly-crowned champ Merab Dvalishvili and second-ranked Umar Nurmagomedov, whoever prevails in the Macau clash is likely next in line after that matchup.
UFC Macau is already up to 12 fights in total. In the co-main event, high-ranked Chinese strawweight contender Yan Xiaonan will try to bounce back from a recent title fight loss when she clashes against Tabatha Ricci. Here’s how the show looks in its current form:
Bout 12: Petr Yan (17-5) vs. Deiveson Figueiredo (24-3-1) (Bantamweight)
Bout 11: Yan Xiaonan (17-4) vs. Tabatha Ricci (11-2) (Strawweight)
Bout 10: Feng Xiaocan (10-2) vs. Shi Ming (16-5) (Road To UFC Strawweight Finals)
Bout 9: Kiru Sahota (12-2) vs. Choi Dong-hoon (8-0) (Road To UFC Flyweight Finals)
Bout 8: You Su-young (13-3) vs. Balgyn Jenisuly (18-5) (Road To UFC Bantamweight Finals)
Bout 7: Zhu Kangjie (20-4) vs. Xie Bin (13-4) (Road To UFC Featherweight Finals)
Bout 6: Carlos Hernandez (9-4) vs. Nyamjargal Tumendemberel (8-0) (Flyweight)
Bout 5: Ozzy Diaz (9-2) vs. Zhang Mingyang (17-6) (Light Heavyweight)
Bout 4: Song Kenan (22-8) vs. Muslim Salikhov (20-5) (Welterweight)
Bout 3: Wang Cong (6-0) vs. Gabriella Fernandes (9-3) (Flyweight)
Bout 2: Lone’er Kavanagh (7-0) vs. Jose Ochoa (7-0) (Flyweight)
Bout 1: Volkan Oezdemir (20-7) vs. Carlos Ulberg (10-1) (Light Heavyweight)
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