UFC Announces Massive Contender Fight for Final PPV of the Year

A massive fight with potential title implications has been added to the UFC's year-end PPV.

Christopher De Santiago | Sep 27, 2024

UFC CEO Dana White during a press conference. / (Zuffa LLC)

UFC 310 is off to a good start.

UFC Rebooks Heavyweight Title Eliminator for UFC 310

The fight announcements are piling in for the remainder of the year with three former title challengers and two "The Ultimate Fighter" winners joining the line-up for what should be a stacked pay-per-view event on Dec. 7 in Las Vegas.

A pair of top contender fights have fallen through at UFC 307 next week as well as UFC 308, losing a potential title eliminator between Ciryl Gane vs. Alexander Volkov due to injury. However, looking on the bright side, the heavyweights have received a new date with UFC 310 as have these featherweights.

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#9-ranked Aljamain Sterling was scheduled to fight up the ladder against #6 Movsar Evloev in Salt Lake City a week from now but the former bantamweight champion ultimately withdrew with an arm injury suffered during training camp.

New Date, Same Opponent

While Evloev had entertained fighting another on short notice, "Funkmaster" will be who he meets in his return as the UFC announced on Friday that they'd been rescheduled for UFC 310 in December.

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Russia's Evloev has won all eight of his UFC fights by decision, improving to 18-0 as a pro with a victory over Arnold Allen at UFC 297 in January. Knocking on the door of a title shot is Evloev but it's easier said than done with Alexander Volkanovski likely getting the winner of featherweight champion Ilia Topuria vs. Max Holloway at UFC 308.

As for Sterling (24-4), the UFC veteran is a new player at 145lbs, winning his divisional debut against Calvin Kattar at UFC 300. Prior to that, Sterling made a case for being the promotion's greatest bantamweight of all time with three successful title defenses with his reign ending by the hands of Sean O'Malley in August of last year.

"Race to the title!" Sterling reacted to the rebooking on Instagram.

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At 35 years old, this may be Sterling's last and best chance to enter featherweight title contention but we'll have to wait and see how it all plays out.

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