Pereira vs Rountree! #UFC307 from the @deltacenter, Utah on October 5th!@StateofSport pic.twitter.com/EJJcjJgUMf
— danawhite (@danawhite) August 16, 2024
The Ultimate Fighting Championship is making sure that its big October show will be one to remember.
On Friday, the UFC announced a slew of matchups for its UFC 307 show on Oct. 5. While it also revealed its main and co-headlining attractions for the evening at Salt Lake City’s Delta Center, a few additional fights worthy of headlining their own Fight Nights were set for this card. It is currently unclear the card placement of the bouts, but Roman Dolidze (13-3, 1 NC) will step in to replace Chris Curtis against Kevin Holland (26-11, 1 NC) at middleweight, and welterweights Stephen Thompson (17-7-1) and Joaquin Buckley (19-6) will throw down.
In June, Georgia’s Dolidze stepped up on short notice to replace Carlos Ulberg in a round robin affair of changed matches to ultimately face Anthony Smith. At this UFC 303 event, Dolidze outworked the longtime veteran en route to a decision nod up a division. Back down at 185 pounds, Dolidze will try to wash the taste of two decision defeats to Marvin Vettori and Nassourdine Imavov in 2023 and early 2024, respectively, out of his mouth.
Holland returned to the win column in June, snapping Michal Oleksiejczuk’s arm with a counter armbar after getting dropped. “Trailblazer” has served as a streaky fighter for his last several encounters, winning two and then losing the next two. This cycle began in 2022, when he picked up stoppages of Alex Oliveira and Tim Means, only to get finished by Khamzat Chimaev and Thompson in back-to-back bouts. He then rebounded with a pair of wins inside the distance vs. Santiago Ponzinibbio and Michael Chiesa, and then lost two in a row to Jack Della Maddalena and Michael Page. If this pattern continues, he will win his next fight and then lose two straight after.
“Wonderboy” makes his first appearance of the year when he battles the high-flying kickboxer Buckley. He will try to turn things around after a deflating submission loss to Shavkat Rakhmonov at the end of 2023. Thompson has only won once since 2020, taking out the aforementioned Holland after the fourth round when Holland sustained injuries to both hands. The 41-year-old from South Carolina has fought into the second round in 12 straight outings.
Having shifted gears back down to the welterweight division in 2023, Buckley has been a man possessed in his lighter weight class. In the last 15 months, “New Mansa” has rattled off knockouts of Andre Fialho and Vicente Luque while claiming decisions over Alex Morono and Nursulton Ruziboev. Buckley had previously targeted a rematch with Holland in a future pairing, as the two met in 2020 with Holland getting the upper hand.
UFC 307 takes place on Oct. 5 at the Delta Center in Salt Lake City. Capping off the pay-per-view show is a light heavyweight title tilt between Alex Pereira and Khalil Rountree, with the co-headliner a bantamweight championship attraction pitting Raquel Pennington against Julianna Pena. Other major pairings on the lineup include Kayla Harrison vs. Ketlen Vieira at 135 pounds as well as a featherweight clash when Movsar Evloev faces Aljamain Sterling.
