The Ultimate Fighting Championship now officially
has a headliner on the books for every event until late May.
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Last week, Instagram account MMA Meta first
posted that Arman
Tsarukyan (19-3) and Renato
Carneiro (17-5-1) would toe the line atop the
UFC Fight Night event on April 29. The show is expected to be
held in the UFC Apex in Las Vegas. On Thursday, the lightweight
main attraction was confirmed by
other outlets.
In December, Tsarukyan rebounded from a decision loss to Mateusz
Gamrot by outpointing Damir
Ismagulov. Prior to the Gamrot defeat in mid-2022, Tsarukyan
strung together five straight wins in the Octagon, with notable
performances over names like Joel
Alvarez, Matt
Frevola and Olivier
Aubin-Mercier. The Russian debuted with the promotion on short
notice, and dropped a hard-fought decision to current champ
Islam
Makhachev.
“Moicano” also bounced from a 2022 setback by beating a tough
opponent towards the end of last year. In the opening round of the
UFC 281 prelim headliner, Carneiro throttled Brad
Riddell with a rear-naked choke. Each of the last five wins for
the Brazilian have come by rear-naked choke, and his six
submissions of this type on the UFC roster are tied for the
third-most with Charles
Oliveira. On the other hand, the 33-year-old American Top Team
product has never performed a knockout, technical or otherwise.
The UFC Fight Night card on April 29 will take place at the UFC
Apex in Las Vegas, and its bout order is not currently official.
Other fights likely to gain main card slots include a middleweight
clash between Caio
Borralho and Michal
Oleksiejczuk, a strawweight tilt pitting Emily
Ducote against Polyana
Viana and a heavyweight slugfest between Martin
Buday and Jake
Collier.