Gabriel and Ismael Bonfim, who both earned a spot in the UFC care of the Contender Series in 2022, will share an upcoming Fight Night card.
Gabriel Bonfim (16-1) will take on Rinat Fakhretdinov (24-2-1), and Ismael Bonfim (20-4) faces off with Nazim Sadykhov (9-1-1), at UFC Vegas 102 on February 15, 2025.
Gabriel vs. Rinat will be held at welterweight; Ismael vs. Nazim at lightweight. Eurosport and Laerte Viana were first to report the pairings. Both fighters confirmed the bookings on social media.
The card will be the second event held at the UFC Apex in 2025, as the promotion struggles to return to the road full time (which may never happen, UFC Senior VP of International and Content, David Shaw, told Cageside Press last month).
Gabriel Bonfim is 3-1 in the UFC since entering the promotion, with the lone loss seeing him succumb to knees in the clinch and some follow-up strikes at the hands of Niolas Dalby in 2023. He bounced back this year, fighting just once and winning a unanimous decision against Ange Loosa.
Opponent Fakhretdinov is coming off a decision win over Carlos Leal that left a bad taste in many fans’ mouths, not to mention the UFC broadcast team. That led to Fakhretdinov having a bit of a spat with Daniel Cormier, who called the welterweight “a moron.”
Ismael Bonfim, meanwhile, also had a bounce-back decision win in his last bout, defeating Vinc Pichel after a loss to Benoit Saint-Denis. His upcoming foe, Nazim Sadyhkov, is a fellow Contender Series product who is 2-0-1 in the UFC to date.
The UFC Vegas 102 card on Feb. 15, 2025 currently has the following reported match-ups attached to it:
- Julia Avila vs. Jacqueline Cavalcanti
- Rodolfo Vieira vs. Jacob Malkoun
- Ismael Bonfim vs. Nazim Sadykhov
- Rinat Fakhretdinov vs. Gabriel Bonfim
- Juliana Miller vs. Carli Judice
- Jose Delgado vs. Connor Matthews
