The Ultimate Fighting Championship is putting together about as classic of a “striker vs. grappler” matchup as it gets.
Per MMA Fighting on Thursday, the promotion has set a welterweight collision of Michael Chiesa (17-7) vs. Max Griffin (20-10) for UFC 310. The two 170ers with drastically different styles will come to blows on Dec. 7 at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas. Griffin has since confirmed the pairing on Instagram.
Chiesa bounced back from a career-long losing streak by tapping out Tony Ferguson in August. The victory snapped a skid that began in 2021, marking his first win since January of that year. In his rough patch, Chiesa succumbed to a brabo choke from Vicente Luque and fell short on the scorecards to Sean Brady. These back-to-back setbacks led to some time off for the Washington native. After about 20 months off, Chiesa returned, and Kevin Holland ended up tapping him with a brabo choke to set a record for the most losses via this submission in company history (three).
“Pain” has alternated wins and losses in his last five, with all five outings hearing the final bell. While he has surpassed aging vets like Carlos Condit and Tim Means—along with a contentious decision over Jeremiah Wells—he has fallen short to top names in the weight class like Neil Magny and Michael Morales. Winner of five of his last seven, Griffin has since righted the ship to even his record with the organization to .500.
UFC 310 will go down at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas on Dec. 7, with no headliner currently on tap. A number of highly anticipated showdowns will take place at this event, including a heavyweight rematch between Ciryl Gane and Alexander Volkov recently rescheduled from UFC 308. Additionally, Virna Jandiroba faces Tatiana Suarez in a likely strawweight title eliminator, while Nick Diaz re-enters the Octagon to throw down with Luque.
