A place among the top 10 at flyweight is on the line at the
Ultimate Fighting Championship’s return trip to
London.
Courtesy of an initial report from MMA
Island on Tuesday, 125-pound contenders Jennifer
Maia (20-9-1) and Casey
O’Neill (9-0) will square off at UFC 286
on March 18. The two flyweights are expected to battle it out
inside of the O2 Arena in London, although the contracts have not
yet been formalized. Maia has since confirmed this pairing in a
comment on Instagram, and
other outlets have also done so as well.
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Maia ended her first two-fight skid in November, where she claimed
a hard-fought decision over Maryna
Moroz. That victory put an end to a rough patch in 2022 where
she dropped unanimous verdicts to Katlyn
Chookagian and Manon
Fiorot. Since making her UFC debut in 2018, the former Invicta Fighting Championships flyweight queen
has gone the distance in nine of her 10 outings. The lone stoppage
came via armbar over Joanne Wood
in 2020.
Unbeaten in her young professional career, O’Neill surges into this
bout on the heels of a four-fight win streak inside of the Octagon.
In 2021, the Aussie roared out of the gate by battering Shana
Dobson, putting Lara
Procopio to sleep with a rear-naked choke and clobbering
Antonina
Shevchenko in the span of less than eight months. Her 2022
campaign slowed after a split decision win over Roxanne
Modafferi that February, as a torn ACL kept her out of action
and bumped her from a possible matchup against Jessica Eye
at UFC 276.
UFC 286 goes down at the O2 Arena in London on March 18, and there
is no current headliner on the books. A rumored championship rubber
match between welterweight kingpin Leon
Edwards and ex-champ Kamaru
Usman has been discussed for that show, but Usman may be still
recovering from a hand injury. The current highest-billed bout on
the card comes in the middleweight division, as former title
challenger Marvin
Vettori tries to stave off the fast-rising Georgian Roman
Dolidze. A 185-pound match pitting Gerald
Meerschaert and Abusupiyan
Magomedov recently fell through due to visa issues for the
latter, although Meerschaert expects to remain on its lineup.