The
Ultimate Fighting Championship is putting together about as
classic of a “striker vs. grappler” matchup as it gets.
Per
MMA Fighting on Thursday, the promotion has set a welterweight
collision of Michael
Chiesa (17-7) vs. Max Griffin
(20-10) for UFC 310.
The two 170ers with drastically different styles will come to blows
on Dec. 7 at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas. Griffin has since
confirmed the pairing on Instagram.
Chiesa bounced back from a career-long losing streak by tapping out
Tony
Ferguson in August. The victory snapped a skid that began in
2021, marking his first win since January of that year. In his
rough patch, Chiesa succumbed to a brabo choke from Vicente
Luque and fell short on the scorecards to Sean Brady.
These back-to-back setbacks led to some time off for the Washington
native. After about 20 months off, Chiesa returned, and Kevin
Holland ended up tapping him with a brabo choke to set a record
for the most losses via this submission in company history
(three).
“Pain” has alternated wins and losses in his last five, with all
five outings hearing the final bell. While he has surpassed aging
vets like Carlos
Condit and Tim
Means—along with a contentious decision over Jeremiah
Wells—he has fallen short to top names in the weight class like
Neil
Magny and Michael
Morales. Winner of five of his last seven, Griffin has since
righted the ship to even his record with the organization to
.500.
UFC 310 will go down at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas on Dec. 7,
with no headliner currently on tap. A number of highly anticipated
showdowns will take place at this event, including a heavyweight
rematch between Ciryl Gane
and Alexander
Volkov recently rescheduled from UFC 308. Additionally,
Virna
Jandiroba faces Tatiana
Suarez in a likely strawweight title eliminator, while Nick Diaz
re-enters the Octagon to throw down with Luque.