The
Ultimate Fighting Championship has started building its Salt
Lake City event.
The first fight of UFC 307
is on the books, as Movsar
Evloev (18-0) will come to blows with Aljamain
Sterling (24-4) in a pivotal featherweight affair. While the
two hinted at this fight coming together this past month, French
social media account MMA
Propagande first reported on the matchup on Wednesday. Sterling
confirmed
the bout on social media on Friday. This fight card is expected to
take place at the Delta Center in Salt Lake City on Oct. 5, and the
double championship main event is rumored to be Ilia
Topuria vs. Max
Holloway with the co-headliner of Raquel
Pennington vs. Julianna
Pena.
Evloev has not tasted defeat as a pro, including eight appearances
in the Octagon since debuting in 2019. The Russian has gone the
distance in eight straight outings as well, accounting for the
lion’s share of his career decision wins. Now training out of
American top team, Evloev celebrates recent wins over Arnold
Allen and Diego
Lopes, the latter with Lopes coming in on short notice. With
seven wins coming at 145 pounds, Evloev is already in the top five
at featherweight for the most decision triumphs.
Former bantamweight king Sterling jumped up to the 145-pound shark
tank after losing his belt to Sean
O’Malley in August 2023. “Aljo” introduced himself to the new
weight class by running roughshod over Calvin
Kattar at UFC 300, hitting a whopping eight takedowns on “The
Boston Finisher” en route to a clear-cut decision win. Before
getting mollywhopped by O’Malley, Sterling had strung together a
nine-fight win streak, prevailing over names including Henry
Cejudo, T.J.
Dillashaw and Petr Yan
twice.