#UFCMacau is shaping up nicely đź‘€Which fight are you most excited for?? pic.twitter.com/0qEawTiuEg
— UFC (@ufc)
September 26, 2024
The
Ultimate Fighting Championship’s trip back to the “Las Vegas of
the East” is looking solid on paper.
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On Wednesday night, the organization released a swath
of new matchups for UFC Macau, also known as
UFC Fight Night 248.
Earlier in the day, the promotion dropped the headliner of
Petr
Yan vs. Deiveson
Figueiredo. To fill out much of the Nov. 23 slate, a whopping
seven pairings were made official or announced for the first
time.
The lineup of the Fight Night affair is currently not set, although
two main card matchups of Volkan
Oezdemir (20-7) vs. Carlos
Ulberg (10-1) at light heavyweight and Xiaonan Yan
(18-4, 1 NC) vs. Tabatha
Ricci (11-2) at strawweight have been set in stone. In the
latter bout, it will be Oezdemir attempting to string together a
three-fight win streak, an achievement he has not amassed since
starting his UFC run at 3-0. His opponent Ulberg had a rocky debut
in 2021, getting posterized by Kennedy
Nzechukwu, but he has not looked back. “Black Jag” has since
picked up six straight victories, including five inside the
distance, and a 12-second drubbing of Alonzo
Menifield in May sets him in the high-stakes clash.
In April, Yan attempted to scale the 115-pound mountain, but
champion Weili Zhang
kicked her back down several notches. The five-round decision
setback put an end to a two-fight win streak for the woman from
China, who notably earned her first stoppage with the promotion by
punching out Jessica
Andrade to get a crack at gold. Foe Ricci has won two fights in
a row, taking home a pair of decisions over Tecia
Pennington and Angela Hill
in 2024. Her lone blemish in this weight class came against
Lupita
Godinez in November 2023.
Additional fights booked for the show to be held at the Galaxy
Arena in Macau, China, include a welterweight collision between
Muslim
Salikhov (20-5) and Kenan Song
(22-8), a flyweight tilt pitting Cong Wang
(6-0) against Gabriella
Fernandes (9-3), a light heavyweight contest as Osman Diaz
(9-2) faces Mingyang
Zhang (17-6), a 125-pound encounter between unbeaten youngsters
as Lone’er
Kavanagh (7-0) battles Jose Ochoa
(7-0, 1 NC) and another scrap at 125 pounds between Carlos
Hernandez (9-4) and Nyamjargal
Tumendemberel (8-0).