A new
Ultimate Fighting Championship mom will have her last dance in
October.
Both Carla
Esparza (19-7) and Tecia
Pennington (13-7) have agreed to compete on Oct. 5 at UFC 307,
according to
MMA Junkie on Thursday. The strawweights have not signed bout
agreements but the pairing should be complete within a few days.
This will not be their first meeting, as they ran into one another
on Season 20 of “The Ultimate Fighter” in 2014, with Esparza
getting the upper hand after their two-round exhibition. The bout
has since been confirmed by Esparza on Instagram on Friday,
who explained that this would serve as her retirement fight.
Former two-time strawweight queen Esparza will be looking to go out
with a win after a suffocating second-round submission loss to
Weili
Zhang in 2022. That defeat surrendered her title, one she
claimed earlier that year courtesy of a tepid split decision over
Rose
Namajunas. “Cookie Monster” had amassed a five-fight win
streak, including two split verdicts and a majority call, to get
another title shot, although she punctuated that run by drumming
out Xiaonan Yan
in May 2021. Since then, Esparza has become a mother, giving birth
to son, Donovan, with husband Matthew Lomeli.
Pennington also celebrated the birth of her first child in 2023,
having a daughter, Alayah, with UFC champ Raquel
Pennington. Pennington has competed once since becoming a mom,
dropping a split decision to Tabatha
Ricci in May. This is the second loss in a row for “The Tiny
Tornado,” who saw a three-fight win streak come to an end courtesy
of Mackenzie
Dern in 2022. Before that loss, Pennington had beaten Brianna
Fortino, Sam Hughes
and Angela Hill
to remain a contender at 115 pounds.
UFC 307 goes down at the Delta Center in Salt Lake City on Oct. 5,
with no main event currently on the books. A rumored pairing for
that night includes Pennington’s wife, Raquel, defending her
bantamweight strap against Julianna
Pena, but that bout has not yet been confirmed. Movsar
Evloev will battle Aljamain
Sterling in the featherweight division, while Kayla
Harrison and Ketlen
Vieira square off at 135 pounds and Jose Aldo
throws down with Mario
Bautista at bantamweight.