The
Ultimate Fighting Championship matchmakers decided this ranked
heavyweight match needed five more rounds.
On the prelims of 2020’s UFC Fight Night 169 card, Marcin
Tybura (25-8) faced and defeated Sergey
Spivak (16-4) via grinding decision. Since then, the two have
gone on similar runs of 7-2 and 6-2, respectively, to establish
themselves in the top 10 at heavyweight. News broke in June that
the two would run it back at the
UFC Fight Night event on Aug. 10 at the UFC Apex in Las Vegas,
and the promotion announced
Thursday morning that it would serve as the main attraction.
The win over Spivak in 2020 was the start of a run for Poland’s
Tybura, who won his next four after the Spivak victory to put
himself in title contention. Alexander
Volkov spurred him at UFC 267, but he bounced back to claim
decisions over Alexander
Romanov and Blagoy
Ivanov to stay in the picture. “Tybur” went on to headline UFC
Fight Night 224 against Tom
Aspinall, and the Brit smashed him in 73 seconds. In his last
time out, Tybura put Tai Tuivasa
to sleep in the main event of UFC Fight Night 239 this March.
The Moldovan will be looking to get back in the win column after a
three-fight win streak was snapped by Ciryl Gane
in Paris last year. Prior to the Gane stoppage, Spivak had put
Greg
Hardy, Augusto
Sakai and Derrick
Lewis away, all within two rounds. While Tybura has seen over a
third of his wins come via decision, “The Polar Bear” has only
relied on the judges twice to get his hand raised as a pro.
The currently unnumbered UFC Fight Night card will go down on Aug.
10 at Las Vegas’ UFC Apex facility. The remainder of the bout order
beyond Tybura vs. Spivak 2 in the main event has not yet been
finalized. Additional pairings that might serve on the main card
include a rescheduled featherweight clash between Damon
Jackson and Jose
Mariscal, as well as a bantamweight battle pitting Javid
Basharat against Chris
Gutierrez. Additionally, Pannie
Kianzad will face off against Karol Rosa
at 135 pounds—Kianzad’s last two outings came on Tybura-headlined
shows, and she lost both times.