Former Ultimate Fighting Championship strawweight
titleholder Jessica
Andrade is returning to her old stomping ground in May.
According to Eurosport
NL on Friday, Andrade (24-10) will be moving back to
strawweight to take on Xiaonan Yan
(16-3, 1 NC) on May 6. The two top-ranked 115ers will be squaring
off on UFC 288
inside of the Prudential Center in Newark, New Jersey. The fight
was later confirmed by Andrade on her
Instagram Stories.
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“Bate Estaca” saw her three-fight win streak across two divisions
come to a crushing halt in February, when she stepped up on short
notice to battle Erin
Blanchfield atop UFC Fight Night 219. The Brazilian flyweight
succumbed to a rear-naked choke in Round 2, suffering her first
non-championship defeat at 125 pounds. Andrade last competed at
strawweight on April 2022, where she snared Amanda
Lemos with a standing arm-triangle choke in a one-off at the
division she left in 2020. Andrade has since claimed she is willing
to compete at any division needed.
China’s Yan has spent her entire career at strawweight, most
recently ending the first losing streak of her career by taking a
majority decision over Mackenzie
Dern in October 2022. Before beating Dern, Yan had dropped two
in a row to ex-champ Carla
Esparza and Marina
Rodriguez, the former her first knockout loss and the latter
her first on the scorecards. The woman nicknamed “Fury” has yet to
earn a stoppage in any of her seven UFC wins to date, sharply
contrasting her pre-UFC run where she prevailed in seven of nine
inside the distance.
UFC 288 goes down at the Prudential Center in Newark, New Jersey,
on May 6. The headliner has not yet been made official, but at
least one title will be on the line as Aljamain
Sterling defends his bantamweight strap against ex-champ
Henry
Cejudo. Other bouts likely to serve high on the billing include
a lightweight clash pitting Charles
Oliveira against Beneil
Dariush, and a featherweight tilt as Bryce
Mitchell takes on Jonathan
Pearce.