BREAKING!!! More fights on Dec. 16th in
Vegas. Tickets on sale Oct. 20th
#UFC296 pic.twitter.com/JHpQtqYSbw— danawhite (@danawhite)
September 23, 2023
The Ultimate Fighting Championship is taking a very
specific path of matchmaking to build a budding star.
Earlier on Friday, Stephen
Thompson and Shavkat
Rakhmonov
publicly posted about their upcoming matchup on social media.
The UFC subsequently confirmed
this on Friday night, announcing that fight as part of
UFC 296 along with an unannounced matchup. Joining the two
title fights and aforementioned Thompson-Rakhmonov tilt will be a
lightweight clash pitting Paddy
Pimblett (20-3) against Tony
Ferguson (25-9). The bouts will take place at the T-Mobile
Arena in Las Vegas on Dec. 16.
Liverpool, England’s Pimblett currently rides a six-fight win
streak that includes all four of his appearances in the Octagon.
His last bout came at UFC 282 in December, where he won a unanimous
decision over Jared
Gordon in a finalist for Sherdog’s 2022
“Robbery of the Year” award – as most observers believed Gordon
had done enough to get the win. Before the controversial victory,
Pimblett left little doubt by racking up five straight stoppages,
with a knockout of Luigi
Vendramini in the Octagon followed by rear-naked chokes of
Rodrigo
Vargas and Jordan
Leavitt in 2022.
While Pimblett has won six fights in a row, Ferguson has suffered
six consecutive losses. One more loss for “El Cucuy” would tie a
dubious UFC record held by B.J. Penn, while
he currently is tied for the second-worst UFC stretch with Elvis
Sinosic, Hector
Lombard, Joshua
Burkman and Phil Baroni.
The former interim champ, before this skid that started in 2020,
had rattled off 12 straight wins with nine finishes over many of
the best names in the division. Across that victorious period from
2013 to 2019, Ferguson picked up nine post-fight bonus checks.
UFC 296 will be held in Las Vegas at the T-Mobile Arena as the
UFC’s final fight card of 2023 on Dec. 16. The main attraction will
see Leon
Edwards put his welterweight strap on the line against former
interim beltholder Colby
Covington. The co-main event comes at 125 pounds, with Alexandre
Pantoja looking for the first defense of his new throne in a
rematch with Brandon
Royval.