It’ll be a flyweight party this fall at UFC 255.
A pair of 125-pound belts will be on the line at the top of the card. Deiveson Figueiredo will put his title on the line for the first time against former champion Cody Garbrandt. And women’s titleholder Valentina Shevchenko will meet challenger Jennifer Maia, UFC president Dana White told broadcast partner ESPN.
UFC 255 is set for Nov. 21. A location and venue still are to be determined, but the main card will air on pay-per-view following prelims on ESPN and early prelims on UFC Fight Pass/ESPN+.
Figueiredo won the flyweight title in July with a brutal first-round knockout of Joseph Benavidez in their rematch. In February, Figueiredo stopped Benavidez with a second-round TKO, but was not eligible to win the then-vacant flyweight title because he missed weight. Three weeks ago, though, he had no weight issues and won the belt free and clear with his fourth straight victory.
Garbrandt will test the flyweight waters for the first time. He won the banamtamweight title against Dominick Cruz in December 2016, but lost it to T.J. Dillashaw in his first attempted title defense. He lost a rematch to Dillashaw, as well. And in March 2019, he was knocked out by Pedro Munhoz, which gave him three straight knockout losses after starting his career 11-0. But in June, he rebounded in a big way with a bonus-winning KO of Raphael Assuncao at UFC 250.
Shevchenko won the then-vacant women’s flyweight title with a unanimous decision over former strawweight champ Joanna Jedrzejczyk at UFC 231. Since then, she’s had three successful defenses of the belt against Jessica Eye, Liz Carmouche and Katlyn Chookagian.
Maia just this past Saturday submitted Joanne Calderwood with a vicious armbar in Las Vegas for her first UFC bonus. It got her back on track after a decision loss to Chookagian in November 2019. The win also showed she can make the flyweight mark on the scale after missing weight in a win over Roxanne Modafferi and the loss to Chookagian.
