A battle between top-five Ultimate Fighting Championship bantamweights
will go down on its first fight card of 2023.
MMA Fighting first reported the news on Thursday that Ketlen
Vieira (13-2) will be squaring off with Raquel
Pennington (14-8) at the
UFC Fight Night event on Jan. 14. The 135-pound contenders will
be facing one another inside of the UFC Apex in Las Vegas on that
date, likely placed high on the main card. Vieira has since
confirmed this booking on her
Instagram Stories shortly after its announcement.
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Vieira bounced back from the first decision loss of her career – a
three-round setback to Yana
Kunitskaya in February 2021 – by overcoming ex-champs Miesha Tate
and Holly
Holm in five-round headliners over the last year. The finish
rate of the Brazilian has diminished significant since joining the
roster in 2016, as she has only won once by stoppage while
recording six other victories on the scorecards. Beyond Kunitskaya,
her only other setback came against Irene
Aldana in 2019, where she was punched out in the first round by
the top Mexican contender.
Former title challenger Pennington is arguably on the best win
streak of her career, racking up four straight wins since mid-2020
over the likes of top-15 talents Marion
Reneau, Pannie Kianzat, Macy
Chiasson and Aspen Ladd.
Of note, the Chiasson match came in her featherweight debut, and
Chiasson still missed weight by 2.5 pounds. The semifinalist of
season 18 of “The Ultimate Fighter” has never before won five bouts
in a row in her career that includes a run at the bantamweight belt
– only to be outclassed and finished last in the fifth round by
Amanda
Nunes.
The unnumbered UFC Fight Night event on Jan. 14 will be held at the
UFC Apex in Las Vegas, with a 185-pound tilt between Nassourdine
Imavov and Kelvin
Gastelum its main attraction. The likely co-main event comes at
welterweight between Geoff Neal
and Shavkat
Rakhmonov. The only two other confirmed matchups on the billing
come in the flyweight division, as Jeff Molina
takes on Jimmy Flick
and Allan
Nascimento faces Carlos
Hernandez.