UFC is returning to the Backyard State with a pair of unbelievable championship bouts. Males’s bantamweight champion Merab Dvalishvili will defend his crown in opposition to former titleholder Sean O’Malley in a title rematch whereas ladies’s bantamweight champion Julianna Pena will tackle former PFL champion Kayla Harrison, UFC CEO Dana White introduced on Tuesday. The occasion will happen on June 7 on the Prudential Heart in New, Jersey.
UFC teased a significant announcement earlier within the day, resulting in hypothesis as to what it may very well be with latest feedback suggesting it may very well be a heavyweight unification between champion Jon Jones and interim titleholder Tom Aspinall, or the potential superfight matchup between light-weight king Islam Makhachev and former featherweight champ Ilia Topuria. As a substitute, it was the announcement of the bantamweight rematch after Dvalishvili and O’Malley battled it out over 5 rounds at Noche UFC final September.
Dvalishvili, 34, enters on a 12-fight win streak and recent off arguably the perfect win of his profession in opposition to Umar Nurmagomedov, the place he was a betting underdog to the unheralded challenger. O’Malley, 30, has not competed for the reason that loss to Dvalishvili.
Within the different title struggle, Pena earned the ladies’s bantamweight title for the second time in her profession final October when she took a break up choice in opposition to Raquel Pennington. The struggle ended over two years of inactivity for Pena, 35, after she was crushed in her rematch with Amanda Nunes in 2022.
Harrison, 34, has made waves since her UFC debut final April with a submission win over Holly Holm at UFC 300 and a call over Ketlen Vieira in October. The Olympic gold medalist gained the 2019 and 2021 PFL ladies’s light-weight event crowns earlier than a surprising upset to Larissa Pacheco in November 2022. She fought simply as soon as extra for the promotion in opposition to Aspen Ladd in 2023 — a call win — earlier than making the bounce to UFC.
