#NocheUFC from @SphereVegas
on September 14th!!!! Fight Club Pre sale Monday. pic.twitter.com/jABnXWAUPw— UFC (@ufc)
July 26, 2024
An even 20% of the
Ultimate Fighting Championship bouts on Mexican Independence
Day will be for gold.
The organization formalized the
entire lineup of
UFC 306 on Friday, announcing on video the complete 10-fight
billing. Serving as the main event will be a bantamweight
championship battle between Sean
O’Malley (18-1, 1 NC) and Merab
Dvalishvili (17-4), in a fight long-since rumored to be
headlining this show. The co-main attraction will come at 125
pounds as Alexa
Grasso (16-3-1) puts her belt on the line against ex-flyweight
queen Valentina
Shevchenko (23-4-1) in their trilogy match. This gala event
will go down at The Sphere in Las Vegas on Sept. 14.
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135-pound champ O’Malley has amassed a seven-fight unbeaten streak
since his lone career loss, a knockout to Marlon Vera
in 2020. As he worked his way up the ladder, O’Malley’s lone
blemish in this stretch came against Pedro
Munhoz, with their encounter ending via no-contest due to an
eye poke. “Suga Sean” went on to claim a contentious split decision
win over Petr Yan that
later earned
Sherdog’s 2022 “Robbery of the Year” award. Since then, the
brash Montanan punched out Aljamain
Sterling to claim the throne and avenged his loss to Vera in
his first defense.
While O’Malley has not lost in seven fights, Dvalishvili has
emerged the victor in 10 straight outings. After starting his UFC
run off with a split decision loss to Frankie
Saenz and a literal last-second submission defeat to Ricky
Simon, Dvalishvili has been a man possessed at running through
the division. While he has prevailed in 10 straight bouts, the
Georgian has won on the scorecards in nine of those. His lone
finish came against Marlon
Moraes in 2021, getting the stoppage via strikes in the second
stanza.
Longtime strawweight Grasso moved up to 125 pounds in 2020, where
she faced and defeated Ji Yeon Kim.
Three wins over Maycee
Barber, Joanne Wood
and Viviane
Araujo catapulted her into a title shot, and she captured the
win over dominant force Shevchenko by face crank in 2023. That
victory earned her a spot on the podium among
Sherdog’s 2023 “Upset of the Year” list, and an immediate
rematch with the woman she tapped. Grasso and Shevchenko fought to
a split draw when running it back on the UFC’s inaugural “Noche
UFC” card in 2023, and it will have been just under one year since
either woman has fought.
Shevchenko’s record-setting run as longest-reigning flyweight champ
came to a screeching halt courtesy of Grasso at UFC 285. That loss
snapped a nine-fight win streak, with all nine coming in her new
weight class of 125 pounds. As she racked up a women’s record seven
straight title defenses, “Bullet” topped names including Liz
Carmouche, Joanna
Jedrzejczyk, Jessica
Andrade and Katlyn
Cerminara. Shevchenko is currently tied with Cerminara for
their division’s all-time win record of nine, while she alone
celebrates the most knockouts (four) among her litany of accolades
at the division.