The
Ultimate Fighting Championship’s first card of 2025 has
undergone a couple of changes a little less than a week before the
event.
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Jacobe
Smith will make his Octagon debut on short notice against
Preston
Parsons at
UFC Vegas 101 — also known as UFC Fight Night 249 — on Saturday
at the UFC Apex in Las Vegas. Smith is a replacement for Andreas
Gustafsson, who withdrew from the event for undisclosed
reasons. MMAjunkie.com was first to report the new
booking.
Meanwhile, Joe Solecki
will replace Yanal
Ashmouz and face Nurullo
Aliev in a lightweight bout on the same card. Both Aliev and
Solecki confirmed the booking via social media. UFC Vegas 101 is
headlined by a strawweight rematch between Amanda
Ribas and Mackenzie
Dern.
A former wrestler at Oklahoma State University, Smith has kicked
off his professional tenure with nine straight triumphs — seven by
KO or TKO. He earned a UFC contract with a second-round stoppage of
Christien
Savoie on
Dana White’s Contender Series.
Parsons is 2-3 during his Octagon career and is coming off a
unanimous decision loss to Oban
Elliott at UFC 304 this past July.
Also a Contender Series alum, Solecki has dropped back-to-back
outings against Grant
Dawson and Drakkar
Klose in UFC competition. Prior to that, the New Jersey native
had been victorious in five of his first six Octagon
appearances.
Aliev will be in action for the first time since February 2023,
when he took a majority decision over Rafael
Alves in his promotional debut at UFC Fight Night 220.