Albert Duraev is wasting no time after winning his UFC contract on the most recent episode of Dana White’s Contender Series.
ESPN was first to report the news that Alessio Di Chirico will welcome Duraev to the UFC. The pair will fight on October 30 at UFC 267 on ‘Fight Island.’ Duraev would confirm the booking on his Instagram story.
Di Chirico (13-6) had all of his momentum halted when he was knocked out in 17 seconds by Abdul Razak Alhassan three weeks ago at UFC on ESPN: Barboza vs. Chikadze. Before his knockout loss, he had a Performance of the Night winning head kick knockout win himself against Joaquin Buckley, which snapped a three-fight losing streak.
Duraev (14-3) is coming off a one-round mauling of Caio Bittencourt that earned him a UFC contract on Dana White’s Contender Series. After his win, he called out most of the top 15 middleweights. The Russian fighter is riding a nine-fight win streak in which he has finished eight of his opponents.
UFC 267 is expected to be a free pay-per-view, and if promotion President Dana White gets his way, it will be the company’s third ABC card. Jan Blachowicz vs. Glover Teixeira will headline the event.
The UFC 267 fight card so far looks like this:
- Jan Blachowicz vs. Glover Teixeira – for the light heavyweight title
- Aljamain Sterling vs. Petr Yan – for the bantamweight title
- Islam Makhachev vs. Rafael dos Anjos
- Amanda Ribas vs. Virna Jandiroba
- Khamzat Chimaev vs. Li Jingliang
- Tai Tuivasa vs. TBD
- Alexander Volkov vs. Marcin Tybura
- Michał Oleksiejczuk vs. Shamil Gamzatov
- Tagir Ulanbekov vs. Allan Nascimento
- Zubaira Tukhugov vs. Ricardo Ramos
- Makwan Amirkhani vs. TBD
- Alen Amedovski vs. Hu Yaozong
- Damir Ismagulov vs. Magomed Mustafaev
- Alessio Di Chirico vs. Albert Duraev
