With a fight at UFC 270 later this month falling through, South Korea’s Ji Yeon Kim will now compete in February.
Kim (9-4-2) will face Brazil’s Priscila Cachoeira (10-4) at the UFC’s February 26, 2022 Fight Night event. Cageside Press confirmed the women’s flyweight booking with multiple sources following an initial report by SCMP/AllStar Sport reporter John Hyon Ko.
Earlier today, Kim posted a heartfelt message about her struggle with COVID, which she overcame — only to have a positive test from opponent Poliana Botelho cancel their bout.
“Three weeks ago I was COVID-19 positive leading up to the fight. Because of that I was not able to continue my fight camp and had to work out at home, but even that was such a hard thing to do due to lung complications,” Kim wrote on social media. “I would consistently lose my breath and voice even on a 5-minute exercises I did. I thought a lot about pushing back the fight because of the condition I was at, but luckily I managed to immerse myself to fight shape by repeating hard training in a week and a half, getting back to where I left off but unfortunately my opponent also ended up testing positive for Covid-19 leading up to fight week.”
“Even though the UFC and my management urgently tried to keep me on the card but nothing has worked out eventually canceling my fight next week.”
Luckily, it will be only a month before Kim does fight again. When she enters the octagon against Cachoeira, she’ll be looking to snap a two-fight skid. In her past two outings, Kim has lost decisions to Alexa Grasso and Molly McCann.
Cachoeira will be looking to bounce back from a recent loss as well come February. The Brazilian was submitted by Gillian Robertson back in December, in a foul-filled fight that saw Cachoeira accused of multiple eye gouges.
Prior to that, Cachoeira had been on a two-fight win streak, defeating Shana Dobson and Gina Mazany.
The UFC’s February 26, 2022 event is set to take place at the Apex in Las Vegas. The following bouts have been reported for the card thus far:
Beneil Dariush vs. Islam Makhachev
Makhmud Muradov vs. Misha Cirkunov
Ignacio Bahamondes vs. Zhu Rong
Hannah Goldy vs. Jinh Yu Frey
Arman Tsarukyan vs. Joel Álvarez
Victor Altamirano vs. Carlos Hernández
Farès Ziam vs. Terrance McKinney
Gregory Rodrigues vs Armen Petrosyan
Jonathan Martinez vs. Alejandro Pérez
Ion Cuțelaba vs. Ryan Spann
Jairzinho Rozenstruik vs. Marcin Tybura
Jonny Parsons vs. Micheal Gillmore
Priscila Cachoeira vs. Ji Yeon Kim
