Three years after her most recent fight, and not long after her wedding to a former UFC title challenger, Veronica Macedo is set for a comeback.
Macedo (6-4-1 MMA, 1-4 UFC) is set to take on Juliana Miller (3-1 MMA, 1-0 UFC) in a women’s flyweight bout when the UFC returns to London for UFC 286 in March. A person with knowledge of the booking confirmed the matchup to MMA Junkie on Friday, but asked to remain anonymous since the UFC has not made a formal announcement. Miller announced the fight on the Outside the Box podcast with Xaria Bloom.
UFC 286 takes place March 14 at The O2 in London. Broadcast details have not yet been announced, but the main card is expected to start at 5 p.m. ET.
Macedo hung up the gloves after a March 2020 unanimous decision loss to Bea Malecki in Brazil. It was the UFC’s final event before the pandemic shut things down for a while. Ahead of that fight, Macedo pulled out of two matchups in late 2019. It was concussion issues that led to her early retirement.
In five UFC bouts, Macedo, a 27-year-old from Venezuela, had just one win, but she made it count. Her 69-second armbar submission of Polyana Viana in August 2019 was a $50,000 bonus winner. Macedo was in the news over the holidays when she and new husband Dan Hardy, who once challenged Georges St-Pierre for the UFC welterweight title, announced their marriage.
Miller will fight for the first time since she won Season 30 of “The Ultimate Fighter” this past August with a third-round TKO of Brogan Walker in the finale. The 26-year-old Miller, who went 1-1 under the Invicta banner before she got a spot on “TUF 30,” beat Claire Guthrie and Kaytlin Neil on the show to reach the final against Walker.
With the addition, the UFC 286 lineup now includes:
- Roman Dolidze vs. Marvin Vettori
- Gunnar Nelson vs. Daniel Rodriguez
- Luana Carolina vs. Joanne Wood
- Malcolm Gordon vs. Jake Hadley
- Jennifer Maia vs. Casey O’Neill
- Jai Herbert vs. Ludovit Klein
- Lerone Murphy vs. Nathaniel Wood
- Chris Duncan vs. Michal Figlak
- Veronica Macedo vs. Juliana Miller
