UFC Orlando: Early Preview & Current Fight Card

With no events scheduled for this upcoming weekend, our next taste of UFC action won’t be arriving until December 3rd when Stephen Thompson and Kevin Holland will headline UFC Orlando.

With no event scheduled for this upcoming weekend, our next taste of UFC action won’t be arriving until December 3rd when Stephen Thompson and Kevin Holland will headline UFC Orlando.

There are currently 15 fights scheduled for the event, and while there have been a few UFC Fight Night cards already this year that were pretty stacked with talent, this might be the best card the promotion has hosted locally on US soil.

For that matter, it will also be one of the few Fight Night cards this year to take place outside of Las Vegas.

Current UFC Orlando Fight Card

The main event between Thompson and Holland should definitely be a crowd pleaser as both fighters love to exhibit their striking skills and will certainly be looking to put on a show for the fans. Both of them are entering this fight off losses but I think both will be at the top of their games looking for a statement win here.

The co-main event of the card features Bryan Barberena vs Rafael Dos Anjos in another matchup that should provide a lot of fireworks.

RDA will be moving back up from lightweight in this matchup so it will be interesting to see how his return to welterweight looks against Barberena, who enters on a three-fight winning streak.

Matt Schnell vs Matheus Nicolau should be an entertaining scrap between two ranked flyweights.

Schell is coming off one of the more impressive comeback wins of 2022 against Sumudaerji, while Nicolau enters on a five-fight win streak. The winner of this one will look to enter the conversation for a Flyweight shot in the future.

Tai Tuivasa and Sergei Pavlovich should be a slugfest to determine which fighter will stay hovering near the UFC Heavyweight title picture in the near future.

Tuivasa is looking to bounce back after Cyril Gane derailed his own winning streak, while Pavlovich will be looking to build off a solid win over Derrick Lewis.

Speaking of Lewis, if there were to be any fights that fall off of this card or UFC 282 the following weekend, don’t be surprised if Derrick Lewis and Sergei Spivac are late additions after their main event at UFC Vegas 65 was scrapped at the last minute.

Reports came out shortly after the event stating that Lewis had been medically cleared, so assuming both fighters are still interested, this fight could be rebooked for one of the December events.

UFC Vegas 66 is the last event scheduled for the year, so if it doesn’t happen at that event or before, it likely won’t be getting rebooked in the near future.

Derek Brunson and Jack Hermansson will meet in a matchup to determine who will get a step closer towards potentially facing new UFC Middleweight champion Alex Pereira in the future.

Both fighters are likely more than just one win away from a title shot but making a statement here would certainly put the winner in the conversation for a future chance at gold.

The rest of the lineup is sprinkled with a mixture between exciting matchups featuring some UFC veteran fan favorites such as Clay Guida, Michael Johnson, and Angela Hill, as well as some relative newcomers to the promotion looking to make statements like Emily Ducote, Francis Marshall, and Yazmin Jauregui.

Which of the fights are you most excited about that are currently booked for UFC Orlando? Who do you think will walk away with some bonus spending money from Fight of the Night honors? Let us know your thoughts below in the comments section.

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One response to “UFC Orlando: Early Preview & Current Fight Card”

  1. […] has been one lineup change since we originally posted our UFC Orlando Early Preview: Jack Hermansson will now be fighting Roman Dolidze instead of Derek Brunson after Brunson was […]

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