Pereira vs Rountree!
#UFC307 from the @deltacenter,
Utah on October 5th!@StateofSport
pic.twitter.com/EJJcjJgUMf— danawhite (@danawhite)
August 16, 2024
The
Ultimate Fighting Championship is making sure that its big
October show will be one to remember.
On Friday, the UFC announced
a slew of matchups for its
UFC 307 show on Oct. 5. While it also revealed its main and
co-headlining attractions for the evening at Salt Lake City’s Delta
Center, a few additional fights worthy of headlining their own
Fight Nights were set for this card. It is currently unclear the
card placement of the bouts, but Roman
Dolidze (13-3, 1 NC) will step in to replace Chris
Curtis against Kevin
Holland (26-11, 1 NC) at middleweight, and welterweights
Stephen
Thompson (17-7-1) and Joaquin
Buckley (19-6) will throw down.
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In June, Georgia’s Dolidze stepped up on short notice to replace
Carlos
Ulberg in a round robin affair of changed matches to ultimately
face Anthony
Smith. At this UFC 303 event, Dolidze outworked the longtime
veteran en route to a decision nod up a division. Back down at 185
pounds, Dolidze will try to wash the taste of two decision defeats
to Marvin
Vettori and Nassourdine
Imavov in 2023 and early 2024, respectively, out of his
mouth.
Holland returned to the win column in June, snapping Michal
Oleksiejczuk’s arm with a counter armbar after getting dropped.
“Trailblazer” has served as a streaky fighter for his last several
encounters, winning two and then losing the next two. This cycle
began in 2022, when he picked up stoppages of Alex
Oliveira and Tim Means,
only to get finished by Khamzat
Chimaev and Thompson in back-to-back bouts. He then rebounded
with a pair of wins inside the distance vs. Santiago
Ponzinibbio and Michael
Chiesa, and then lost two in a row to Jack
Della Maddalena and Michael
Page. If this pattern continues, he will win his next fight and
then lose two straight after.
“Wonderboy” makes his first appearance of the year when he battles
the high-flying kickboxer Buckley. He will try to turn things
around after a deflating submission loss to Shavkat
Rakhmonov at the end of 2023. Thompson has only won once since
2020, taking out the aforementioned Holland after the fourth round
when Holland sustained injuries to both hands. The 41-year-old from
South Carolina has fought into the second round in 12 straight
outings.
Having shifted gears back down to the welterweight division in
2023, Buckley has been a man possessed in his lighter weight class.
In the last 15 months, “New Mansa” has rattled off knockouts of
Andre
Fialho and Vicente
Luque while claiming decisions over Alex Morono
and Nursulton
Ruziboev. Buckley had previously targeted a rematch with
Holland in a future pairing, as the two met in 2020 with Holland
getting the upper hand.
UFC 307 takes place on Oct. 5 at the Delta Center in Salt Lake
City. Capping off the pay-per-view show is a light heavyweight
title tilt between Alex
Pereira and Khalil
Rountree, with the co-headliner a bantamweight championship
attraction pitting Raquel
Pennington against Julianna
Pena. Other major pairings on the lineup include Kayla
Harrison vs. Ketlen
Vieira at 135 pounds as well as a featherweight clash when
Movsar
Evloev faces Aljamain
Sterling.