A pair of welterweights will finally get a chance to face off at UFC 261 next month, after being rescheduled from February.
On Wednesday, UFC officials announced via press release that Randy Brown will fight Alex Oliveira at UFC 261 on April 24. The pair were scheduled to fight last month at UFC Fight Night: Rozenstruik vs. Gane, but Brown had to withdraw from the fight for undisclosed reasons.
Brown (12-4) is coming off his least active year since 2018, in which he also only fought once. He had his two-fight win streak snapped at UFC Fight Night: Brunson vs. Shahbazyan in August, where he was knocked out by Vicente Luque. The American-Jamaican fighter had wins over Warlley Alves and Bryan Barberena — both finishes.
Like his opponent, Oliveira (22-9-1) also had his two-fight win streak snapped last year against a debuting Shavkat Rakhmonov on ‘Fight Island.’ Before his loss to Rakhmonov, “Cowboy” had gone 2-0 in 2020. He beat Max Griffin at UFC 248 in March before the pandemic, and then he defeated Peter Sobotta in July.
UFC 261 takes place on April 24, with the octagon returning to the Vystar Veterans Memorial Arena in Jacksonville, Florida. Three title fights headline the card.
The card looks as follows so far:
- Kamaru Usman (c) vs. Jorge Masvidal – for the UFC welterweight championship
- Valentina Shevchenko (c) vs. Jessica Andrade – for the UFC women’s flyweight championship
- Zhang Weili (c) vs. Rose Namajunas – for the UFC women’s strawweight championship
- Uriah Hall vs. Chris Weidman
- Jimmy Crute vs. Anthony Smith
- Brendan Allen vs. Karl Roberson
- Randy Brown vs. Alex Oliveira
- Danaa Batgerel vs. Kevin Natividad
- Qileng Aori vs. Jeffrey Molina
- Johnny Munoz vs. Jamey Simmons
- Kazula Vargas vs. Rong Zhu
- Ariane Carnelossi vs. Na Liang
