Two of the women’s bantamweight division’s best will go head to head on Saturday night in Las Vegas as former 135-pound champion Holly Holm faces off against Brazilian contender Ketlen Vieira in the main event at UFC Fight Night 206.
Holm is back in form after a patchy run that saw her lose five of her last seven outings. That run began at UFC 196 where she lost her bantamweight title to Miesha Tate. Subsequent defeats to Valentina Shevchenko and Germaine de Randamie followed as Holm struggled to recapture the form that saw her stun Ronda Rousey to become UFC champion.
Victories over Bethe Correia and Megan Anderson were offset by defeats to Cris Cyborg and Amanda Nunes, but Holm’s standing in the division remained high, and back-to-back victories over Raquel Pennington and Irene Aldana in 2020 put “The Preacher’s Daughter” back in solid form again.
She’ll be looking to make it three in a row with a win over Brazil’s Vieira, whose own form has been somewhat patchy, too.
Vieira lost her undefeated record in a knockout loss to Irene Aldana in December 2019, then suffered her second career defeat two bouts later after being beaten on the scorecards by Yana Kunitskaya.
Vieira bounced back with a unanimous decision win over former champ Miesha Tate last November, and now she’ll look to score back-to-back victories over former champions when she faces Holm this weekend.
Ahead of the matchup, former UFC welterweight title challenger and globally respected fight analyst Dan “The Outlaw” Hardy dives into the X’s and O’s of the matchup as he breaks down the matchup in “The War Room.”
Check out Dan’s analysis via the video below.
