Movsar Evloev will officially welcome Aaron Pico to the UFC this summer.
The anticipated featherweight matchup was among four bouts added to an upcoming Fight Night card set for July 26 in Abu Dhabi, the UFC announced Wednesday.
Evloev is undefeated in mixed martial arts with notable wins over Diego Lopes, Aljamain Sterling, Arnold Allen and Dan Ige. UFC president Dana White said a win over Pico could earn the 31-year-old Russian a title shot at 145 pounds.
Pico signed with the UFC earlier this year after a stellar career under the Bellator MMA banner. The 28-year-old American is 13-4 in MMA and 9-1 this decade with his lone loss being due to a shoulder injury.
The organization also announced former bantamweight champion Petr Yan will return to action to take on surging 135-pound contender Marcus McGhee in a featured bout.
Yan is coming off a 2024 campaign during which he earned back-to-back wins over Song Yadong and Deiveson Figueiredo. McGhee is off to a 4-0 start to his UFC career and coming off a Jonathan Martinez in November.
Also, Bryce Mitchell will be moving down from featherweight to bantamweight to face Said Nurmagomedov, plus a light-heavyweight matchup between knockout artists Nikita Krylov and Bogdan Guskov
The event at Etihad Arena is scheduled to be headlined by a middleweight clash between former champion Robert Whittaker and streaking contender Reinier de Ridder, and features Canada’s Marc-Andre Barriault taking on Russian striking specialist Shara Magomedov.
COMMENTS
When submitting content, please abide by our submission guidelines, and avoid posting profanity, personal attacks or harassment. Should you violate our submissions guidelines, we reserve the right to remove your comments and block your account. Sportsnet reserves the right to close a story’s comment section at any time.