Revised main card lineup released for Saturday’s UFC 291 event

The revised main card lineup has been released for Saturday’s UFC 291 event.

UFC 291 takes place this coming Saturday, July 29th, at the Delta Center in Salt Lake City, Utah.

The biggest change to the pay-per-view lineup saw the Paulo Costa (14-2 MMA) vs. Ikram Aliskerov (14-1 MMA) fight removed with both fighters set to battle it out with different opponents at UFC 294 in October of this year. It will now be Paulo Costa vs the undefeated Khamzat Chimaev (12-0 MMA) and Ikram Aliskerov vs Nassourdine Imavov (12-4 MMA) at UFC 294.

The Updated UFC 291 Main Card lineup can be found below:

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Dustin Poirier (29-7 MMA)  vs. Justin Gaethje  (24-4 MMA) –  for the “BMF” title

Jan Blachowicz (29-9 MMA) vs. Alex Pereira (7-2 MMA)  – light heavyweight bout

Michel Pereira  (28-11 MMA) vs. Stephen Thompson (17-6 MMA) – welterweight bout

Tony Ferguson (26-8 MMA) vs. Bobby Green (29-14 MMA) – lightweight bout

Michael Chiesa (18-6 MMA) vs. Kevin Holland (24-9 MMA) – welterweight bout

Poirier and Gaethje will be meeting in the Octagon for the 2nd time. Their first fight took place way back in April of 2018 where it was ‘The Diamond’ defeating ‘The Highlight’ by TKO at 0:33 of round 4. The ‘Baddest Motherf**ker’ title is on the line.

Images via: @janblachowicz on Instagram & AlexPoatanPereira on YouTube

Pereira will be making his light heavyweight debut when he gets in the cage with Blachowicz. ‘Poatan’ was most recently defeated by Israel Adesanya (24-2 MMA) last November at UFC 281. Blachowicz last fought Magomed Ankalaev (17-1 MMA) in December of last year at UFC 282 which ended in a split draw.

Michel Pereira vs Stephen Thompson was originally scheduled to take place in June of this year at UFC 289. ‘Wonderboy’ last fought and defeated Kevin Holland (24-9 MMA) via TKO in December of last year. ‘Demolidor’ has won 5 in a row coming into Saturdays match-up, his most recent victory coming against Santiago Ponzinibbio (29-7 MMA) in May of last year.

Ferguson, 39, is currently on a 5 fight losing streak and is looking to get back into the win column when he meets Bobby Green this weekend. ‘King’, 36 is also in need of a victory after having 2 losses and 1 no-contest in his last 3 fights.

Kevin Holland last defeated Santiago Ponzinibbio by knockout in April of this year. Chiesa has not fought since November of 2021 and will be looking for a win after back-to-back losses against Vicente Luque (21-9 MMA) and Sean Brady (15-1 MMA).

The preliminary lineup has yet to be finalized.

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