Utah, we’re coming BACK #UFC307 is headed to Salt Lake City!
For more info: https://t.co/FLA3QMZl6f@StateOfSport #StateOfSport | @DeltaCenter #DeltaCenter pic.twitter.com/6JbaXCjfcD
— UFC (@ufc) August 8, 2024
For the third year in a row, the Ultimate Fighting Championship is posting up a pay-per-view party in Salt Lake City.
In 2016, the promotion first took to the city once coined “The Crossroads of the West” with a Fight Night card featuring Yair Rodriguez and Alex Caceres. Six years later, the league staged UFC 278 in the same building, then named the Vivint Arena. The company came back for UFC 291 in 2023, and UFC 307 will be the next one in the line of consecutive yearly cards. This show will be held at the Delta Center, home of the National Basketball Association’s Utah Jazz, on Oct. 5, with this venue officially confirmed by the promotion on Thursday. There is currently no headliner on the books.
Several marquee matches are expected to go down on this Oct. 5 showcase. A reported bantamweight championship pairing between Raquel Pennington and Julianna Pena is expected for that evening, but the bout has not yet been confirmed. At least two de facto title eliminators are scheduled for UFC 307, with one coming at women’s bantamweight and the other at 145 pounds. Kayla Harrison will be throwing down with Ketlen Vieira, while Movsar Evloev hopes to push his undefeated record to 19-0 at the expense of former bantamweight king Aljamain Sterling.
Five other tilts are currently set for the lineup, with the bout order still in flux given that it is roughly halfway to completion. Likely a main card matchup, Jose Aldo returns with a new contract to face Mario Bautista at 135 pounds. Additionally, Chris Curtis battles Kevin Holland in a middleweight clash. Strawweights Carla Esparza and Tecia Pennington collide in a rematch from their exhibition bout on “The Ultimate Fighter Season 20” in 2014, while fellow 115ers Marina Rodriguez and Iasmin Lucindo will also compete on the card. Finally, middleweight power strikers Cesar Almeida and Ihor Potieria will duke it out on what most expect to be a preliminary encounter.
