Welterweight action between a pair of explosive knockout artists is among the fights announced Tuesday for the UFC’s May 20 card.
The Fight Night show, set to be headlined by Raquel Pennington vs. Irene Aldana 2, finds the promotion once again holed up at the UFC Apex in Las Vegas. In addition to announcing the main event, promotion officials also revealed a number of additional match-ups via press release.
Among them, Joaquin Buckley (15-6) is set to take on Andre Fialho (16-6, 1NC) in a welterweight showdown.
Buckley, winner of the 2020 Knockout of the Year, went 2-2 in 2022, starting the year with wins over Abdul Razak Alhassan and Albert Duraev. In his last two outings, however, Buckley came up short against Nassourdine Imavov and Chris Curtis.
That has led to a drop in weight, with “Newmansa” returning to 170lbs for the first time since 2018, prior to his UFC run kicking off.
Fialho fought five times in 2022, posting a 2-3 record starting with a short-notice match-up with Michel Pereira. He earned Performance of the Night bonuses for both of his wins, which came against Cameron VanCamp and Miguel Baeza.
Also newly announced, a women’s flyweight match-up will kick off the card. That fight sees Natalia Silva (14-5-1) face off with Victoria Leonardo (9-5). The 33-year old Leonardo picked up her first win inside the octagon in her last fight, which saw her win a unanimous decision over Mandy Bohm.
The Invicta FC and Bellator MMA veteran is now 1-2 inside the octagon. Silva is 2-0 in the UFC and currently sits on an eight-fight win streak.
The following match-ups have been reported for the UFC’s May 20 Fight Night card to date:
- Raquel Pennington vs. Irene Aldana
- Edmen Shahbazyan vs. Anthony Hernandez
- Ilir Latifi vs. Rodrigo Nascimento
- Orion Cosce vs. Gilbert Urbina
- Andre Fialho vs. Joaquin Buckley
- Karolina Kowalkiewicz vs. Vanessa Demopoulos
- Abdul Razak Alhassan vs. Brunno Ferreira
- Hayisaer Maheshate vs. Viacheslav Borschev
- Michael Johnson vs. Carlos Diego Ferreira
- Chase Hooper vs. Nick Fiore
- Natalia Silva vs. Victoria Leonardo
