The UFC announced Friday morning that their event on October 12 will be taking place in Tampa, Florida and not San Francisco as had been widely reported.
On Friday morning, the UFC announced that their October 12 event will actually be taking place in Tampa, Florida and not San Francisco as had been previously reported. Several outlets had previously said that the event would be going to Northern California so the announcement took both fans and pundits by surprise.
It's official! 🌴
We're headed to Tampa – headlined by 🇵🇱 @JoannaMMA vs 🇺🇸 @KarateHottieMMA. #UFCTampa pic.twitter.com/E6du4V3tJ9
— UFC (@ufc) August 9, 2019
The event is set to be headlined by former long-time strawweight champion Joanna Jędrzejczyk taking on the seventh ranked Michelle Waterson. Jędrzejczyk has not been in the cage since moving up to face Valentina Shevchenko for the flyweight title last December. Waterson was widely considered to be a possible contender for the strawweight title when top ranked Tatiana Suarez was unable to take the bout, but UFC President Dana White made the claim that “The Karate Hottie” needed more wins before she was ready to challenge for the belt. Waterson is on a three fight win-streak and last fought in March against Karolina Kowalkiewicz.
The event will also the return of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu ace Mackenzie Dern as she fights Amanda Ribas at strawweight. Other bouts currently set for the card are a flyweight bout between Tim Elliott and Deiveson Figueirido and a light-heavyweight bout between Ryan Spann and Devin Clark. There have also been reports that the UFC is looking to book Kron Gracie against Cub Swanson on the card.
More fights are expected to be announced in the coming weeks.
