Sign up for ESPN+ right here, and you can then stream the UFC live on
your smart TV, computer, phone, tablet or streaming device via the
ESPN app. A few days after conflicting reports over a
Ultimate Fighting Championship bantamweight matchup came out, a
fight has materialized. One day after his dominant performance against Heili
Alateng at UFC on ESPN 16, Casey
Kenney (15-2-1) was rumored to have an upcoming fight booked
against Nathaniel
Wood (17-4). Both
fighters denied
that they had been offered the fight, but it soon came to fruition.
The report first came from MMA H.E.A.T.
Podcast on Sunday, and on Thursday, Kenney confirmed on his
Instagram he
would be facing Wood at
UFC 254.
At UFC on ESPN 16, Kenney battered Alateng for 15 minutes with
repeated vicious left kicks to the body and head to put himself on
a two-fight win streak. Two appearances on Dana White’s Contender Series did not lead to
Kenney’s initial signing with the promotion, as he had to go win
interim flyweight and bantamweight titles in the Legacy Fighting Alliance to earn his place on
the roster. Kenney made his debut by upsetting Ray Borg, and
then beat Manny
Bermudez shortly thereafter. His only loss inside the Octagon
came against Merab
Dvalishvili in February.
Wood bounced back from his first stoppage loss due to strikes – his
previous TKO defeat came from a badly broken nose in 2016 – by
taking just his third career decision win over John
Castaneda. That knockout loss coming to John Dodson
in February snapped a three-fight win streak in the UFC and an
eight-fight overall win streak that saw “The Prospect” finish each
of those eight opponents inside the distance.
UFC 254 goes down at the Flash Forum in Abu Dhabi, United Arab
Emirates on Oct. 24 . Headlining the final card on “Fight Island”
in this stretch is a lightweight title unification bout as champ
Khabib
Nurmagomedov comes to blows with interim titlist Justin
Gaethje. Drawing the co-main assignment is a potential
championship eliminator matchup at middleweight when Robert
Whittaker faces Jared
Cannonier. Also on the main card is a heavyweight scrap pitting
Alexander
Volkov against Walt
Harris.
