UFC 290’s pay-per-view main card is official.
The UFC’s annual International Fight Week festivities return on July 8 with a stacked card highlighted by two title bouts, as UFC featherweight champion Alexander Volkanovski takes on interim champion Yair Rodriguez in a unification match in the main event, and Brandon Moreno defends his flyweight strap in a rematch against Alexandre Pantoja in the co-headliner.
UFC 290 takes place at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas.
Volkanovski is currently MMA Fighting’s No. 2 ranked pound-for-pound male fighter in the sport. He’s looking for his fifth consecutive title defense after falling short against Islam Makhachev in his bid for two-division glory this past February. To do so he’ll have to get past Rodriguez, who captured the interim title with a second-round submission of Josh Emmett.
Moreno and Pantoja have fought twice before, with Moreno losing both times. Their first bout came in a 2016 exhibition on TUF 24, which Pantoja won via second-round rear-naked choke. Pantoja then won the rematch with a unanimous decision in a 2018 UFC bout.
Rounding out the main card lineup is a No. 1 contender’s match between former UFC middleweight champion Robert Whittaker and rising contender Dricus Du Plessis, an exciting lightweight scrap between Jalin Turner and Dan Hooker, and a middleweight tilt pitting blue-chip prospect Bo Nickael against Tresean Gore to open the pay-per-view card.
