BREAKING: Israel Adesanya (@stylebender) vs. Yoel Romero (@YoelRomeroMMA) will headline UFC 248 in Las Vegas per Dana White. Adesanya was itching to fight. Big one in the desert on March 7. pic.twitter.com/pnx6M5aNoW
— Brett Okamoto (@bokamotoESPN) January 17, 2020
Yoel Romero will be getting another crack at the Ultimate Fighting Championship middleweight title in March.
On Thursday, ESPN announced that Israel Adesanya (18-0) will be defending his middleweight throne against Romero (13-4) at UFC 248. “The Last Stylebender” has targeted a fight with Romero for quite some time, and the promotion is putting it together. The event will take place on March 7 at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas. The 185-pound title affair will join another championship match up on the card at strawweight, between Weili Zhang and former divisional queen Joanna Jedrzejczyk.
Adesanya has yet to taste defeat as a professional in MMA, most recently demolishing Robert Whittaker to unify the interim and middleweight titles at UFC 243. The Sherdog.com 2019 “Fighter of the Year” winner, Adesanya beat Anderson Silva on the scorecards before engaging in the 2019 “Fight of the Year” against Kelvin Gastelum at UFC 236. Adesanya has scored post-fight bonuses in each of his last five bouts, and six of his seven inside the Octagon.
Romero has not won a fight since he knocked out Luke Rockhold in February 2018. Dropping a split verdict to Whittaker for the belt, he returned in August to lose a thrilling decision to Paulo Henrique Costa at UFC 241. When he faced Rockhold and then later Whittaker, the belt was on the line. Unfortunately for Romero, he missed weight both times and was ineligible to win middleweight gold each time. This will be Romero’s fourth championship affair in his last five fights. Although Costa was initially considered for the title shot, a bicep injury suffered in his battle with Romero has sidelined him for an extended period.