Dana White once again took to social media to livestream some big announcements for the UFC’s upcoming schedule.
During Wednesday’s livestream, White announced the full main card for the 11th Annual International Fight Week’s crown jewel, UFC 290. Atop of the card will be a previously reported title unification bout between featherweight king, Alexander Volkanovski and Interim champion, Yair Rodriguez.
In the co-main event, fellow Mexican, Brandon Moreno, will defend his flyweight title in a rematch with Alexandre Pantoja. The two have met on two separate occasions, but one of them was on The Ultimate Fighter.
Our #UFC290 main event is OFFICIAL!
Dana White just dropped the entire main card for International Fight Week and it's HUGE 🔥 pic.twitter.com/aoNWRRiJvb
— UFC (@ufc) May 10, 2023
Middleweights will fight for number one contendership outside of the main and co-main event, as Robert Whittaker looks to get another crack at champion Israel Adesanya. In his way and hoping to make it an all African affair, is Dricus Du Plessis. The South African is coming in on a eight fight win streak and is yet to be defeated under the UFC banner.
Jalin Turner and Dan Hooker will finally meet, as the two were scheduled to compete back in March, but Hooker pulled out due to injury. Turner subsequently lost to replacement, Mateusz Gamrot.
Bo Nickal once again finds himself competing on a marquee Pay-Per-View as he’ll take on TUF 29 competitor, Tresean Gore. The latter didn’t have the best start to his UFC tenure, picking up losses to both Bryan Battle and Cody Brundage, but since then has gotten back on the winning track, submitting Josh Fremd. Nickal on the other hand is improving and impressing with each outing, and will look to make it four straight round one victories.
As well as announcing the full main card, White announced that Deiveson Figueiredo would open up the prelims against Manel Kape. Since then, MMA Fighting’s Guilherme Cruz has reported that the fight is still off despite the announcement.
Figueiredo has reportedly not been cleared by doctors to complete.
The Deiveson Figueiredo vs. Manel Kape fight still off despite Dana White's UFC 290 announcement today, Figueiredo confirmed to me.
Like Figueiredo told me last week, he's not cleared by the doctors at the moment.
— Guilherme Cruz (@guicruzzz) May 10, 2023
UFC 290 takes place on July 8, 2023 at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada.
