Former flyweight champion Juliana
Velasquez will return to action for the first time in nearly a
year when she meets
Paula Cristina dos Santos Silva on the
Bellator 301 preliminary draw.
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Promotion officials announced the bout on Monday. Three other
prelims were also confirmed for the event: Keri
Melendez vs. Sabriye
Sengul at flyweight; Archie
Colgan vs. Pieter
Buist at lightweight and Matheus
Mattos vs. Richard
Palencia at bantamweight.
Bellator 301 takes place at Wintrust Arena in Chicago on Nov. 17
and is headlined by a welterweight title tilt pitting Yaroslav
Amosov against Jason
Jackson. In the co-main event, Sergio
Pettis will square off with Patrick Mix
in a bantamweight championship unification bout. The main card airs
on Showtime at 9 p.m. ET/6 p.m. PT, while prelims stream at the
Bellator MMA YouTube channel, the Showtime Sports YouTube channel
and Pluto TV beginning at 5 p.m. ET/2 p.m. PT.
Velasquez, who will turn 37 in October, is coming off back-to-back
losses to Liz
Carmouche in flyweight title bouts, the most recent of which
occurred this past December. The Team Nogueira representative began
her professional tenure with nine consecutive triumphs — including
seven under the Bellator banner. She captured 125-pound gold with a
five-round verdict over Ilima-Lei
Macfarlane at Bellator 254 and defended the strap once in a
split-decision triumph against Denise
Kielholtz at Bellator 262.
Anchored at Nova Uniao, dos Santos Silva has lost two of her last
three professional outings. She made her promotional debut at
Bellator 296, where she dropped a decision to Kielholtz on May
12.