Azamat Bekoev was slated to face Torrez Finney on Aug. 2 at the UFC Apex, however, Finney was removed from the card due to injury.
Instead of keeping Bekoev on that card, the UFC announced Monday the streaking middleweight will take on Yousri Belgaroui at a UFC Fight Night event on Oct. 18 in Vancouver.
Bekoev was the Legacy Fighting Alliance champ at 185 pounds before signing with the UFC and debuting earlier this year.
The 29-year-old Russian knocked out Zachary Reese in three minutes at UFC 311 in January and is coming off a first-round technical knockout of The Ultimate Fighter 32 middleweight winner Ryan Loder in May.
Belgaroui is a former kickboxing star who transitioned to mixed martial arts in 2021.
The 33-year-old from the Netherlands fought both Alex Pereira and Israel Adesanya multiple times under the Glory Kickboxing banner, going a combined 1-4 against the future-and-now-former UFC champions.
Belgaroui lost a pair of decisions to Adesanya in 2016 — one unanimous and one split — and won a decision over Periera the following year.
Periera beat Belgaroui in their rematch via TKO due to a cut and was knocked out by Pereira in their trilogy bout in 2018.
Belgaroui is 8-3 in MMA and now trains alongside Pereira at Teixeira MMA & Fitness under the tutelage of former UFC light-heavyweight champ Glover Teixeira.
He has won three in a row but did not impress UFC president and CEO Dana White in his most recent appearance. Belgaroui picked up a third-round TKO win over Taiga Iwasaki 10 months ago during a fight in which he was deducted a point for eye pokes.
“Yousri, he was an 11-to-one favourite against a guy who took the fight on short notice,” White said last September. “He's a six-foot-five middleweight. Instead of closing his hands and using them to keep him off him or to finish him, he poked him in the eyes five or six times. He did not impress me tonight. I'm not interested."
The Oct. 18 Fight Night card marks the UFC’s first trip to Vancouver since UFC 289 in June of 2023.
No main event has been named to date, but a women’s flyweight matchup between recent title challenger Manon Fiorot and rising Canadian contender Jasmine Jasudavicius is scheduled to take place at Rogers Arena.
