Former heavyweight champion Andrei Arlovski will be back in action at UFC 271 next month.
Arlovski (32-20, 2NC) will face Jared Vanderaa (12-6) at the event on February 12, 2022. Vanderaa’s management firm, Iridium Sports, announced the news Friday. Arlovski also confirmed the booking on social media.
Posting a 2-1 record in 2021, Arlovski will enter UFC 271 off two straight wins. After losing via submission to Tom Aspinall to start the year, “The Pitbull” bounced back with back-to-back unanimous decision wins over Chase Sherman and Carlos Felipe.
The 42-year old has had a late-career resurgence of late, and is 4-1 in his last five fights.
Vanderaa was supposed to face Azamat Murzakanov last month, and even weighed in for the fight. However, he was pulled from the UFC on ESPN 31 card shortly after, having not been cleared to competed.
The former SMASH Global and EFC heavyweight champion last competed in October, where he was finished by Alexander Romanov. After winning his way into the promotion on Dana White’s Contender Series in 2020, Vanderaa has gone 1-2 to date.
UFC 271 takes place February 12, 2022 at the Toyota Center in Houston, Texas. Topped by a middleweight title fight between champ Israel Adesanya and the man he originally won the belt from, Robert Whittaker, the card currently breaks down as follows:
Israel Adesanya (c) vs. Robert Whittaker – for the UFC middleweight championship
Jared Cannonier vs. Derek Brunson
Kyler Phillips vs. Marcelo Rojo
Vinc Pichel vs. Mark Madsen
Roxanne Modafferi vs. Casey O’Neill
Alex Perez vs. Matt Schnell
Ed Herman vs. Maxim Grishin
Leomana Martinez vs. Ronnie Lawrence
Alexander Hernandez vs. Renato Moicano
Carlos Ulberg vs. Fabio Cherant
A.J. Dobson vs. Jacob Malkoun
Douglas Silva de Andrade vs. Sergey Morozov
Orion Cosce vs. Mike Mathetha
Bobby Green vs. Nasrat Haqparast
Derrick Lewis vs. Tai Tuivasa
Andrei Arlovski vs. Jared Vanderaa
