UFC 236 quickly got some answers over the past two weeks as we now know that the event set for April 13 will take place in Atlanta, Georgia at the State Farm Arena.
On top of that, we got two big interim title fights announced as at middleweight, Kelvin Gastelum will take on the unbeaten Israel Adesanya in the co-main event. In the event’s headliner, we’ll see a rematch at lightweight between current featherweight champion Max Holloway and Dustin “The Diamond” Poirier. Also recently reported for the event was a fun flyweight match-up between Brazil’s Poliana Botelho and Paige VanZant.
In a follow-up report today from Yahoo! Esportes, however, it was revealed that Botelho had withdrawn from the bout. Which led to the surging Montana De La Rosa appearing to get the fight she’s been wanting for quite some time now.
But that doesn’t appear to be the case either. De La Rosa told BJPenn.com that the reports of the fight between her and VanZant for UFC 236 were not true, as VanZant is dealing with an injury.
“I guess [UFC matchmaker] Mick [Maynard] wanted to make that fight between me and Paige,” De La Rosa said. “But now Paige is claiming her arm is hurt so she can’t fight that Poliana girl or me so we aren’t sure what is happening. As of now, she is hurt so that is not true. I’m just waiting to hear. They do want to make that fight with Paige and I but she is claiming she is hurt. I’m not really sure what is going on now.”
Both De La Rosa and VanZant are coming off of successful performances where they both picked up wins via armbar. For VanZant, hers came at UFC Brooklyn against Rachael Ostovich while De La Rosa more recently scored hers in Australia at UFC 234 over Nadia Kassem. Both came in the second-round.
As for the rest of UFC 236’s lineup, it currently sits as follows.
- Lightweight – 155lbs: (IC) – (FW C)Max Holloway vs. Dustin Poirier
- Middleweight – 185lbs: (IC) – Kelvin Gastelum vs. Israel Adesanya
- Light Heavyweight – 205lbs: Ovince Saint Preux vs. Nikita Krylov
- Light Heavyweight: Eryk Anders vs. Khalil Rountree Jr.
- Bantamweight – 135lbs: Montel Jackson vs. Andre Soukhamthath
- Flyweight – 125lbs: Wilson Reis vs. Alexandre Pantoja
- Bantamweight: Boston Salmon vs. Khalid Taha
