Former UFC Champion Set For Bout
Robert Whittaker, a former UFC middleweight champion, will take on Dricus du Plessis at UFC 290. The winner of that bout will face Israel Adesanya for the title, UFC president Dana White confirmed.
White made the announcement via social media shortly after revealing several planned fights for the coming months.
Whittaker is 24-6 overall, including a 12-2 mark at middleweight in the UFC. Both of those defeats came at the hands of Adesanya.
Du Plessis has scored seven consecutive wins overall, the last five of which have come inside the Octagon, to move his record to 19-2 overall.
“The winner of that fight will fight Adesanya later this year, and that fight is targeted for Sydney, Australia,” White said.
Adesanya recently won back the title with a second round knockout of Alex Pereira. He is in his second run as champion, as the first started back in 2019 with a unification win over Whittaker at UFC 243. That event also took place in Australia.
Along with that fight announcement, White also confirmed that Robbie Lawler will meet Niko Price and Jalin Turner will face Dan Hooker.
UFC 290 takes place during International Fight Week in Las Vegas on July 8. It will be held inside the T-Mobile Arena.
Previously announced fights include Alexander Volkanovski vs. Yair Rodriguez in a featherweight title unification match, Brandon Moreno defending his flyweight belt vs. Alexandre Pantojoa, Bo Nickal returning against Tresean Gore and Deiveson Figueiredo vs. Manel Kape.
Reports had circulated that UFC 290 would be home to the heavyweight title fight between Jon Jones and Stipe Miocic, but those reports have since fallen by the wayside. Plans now seem to center around those two meeting in the fall of this year.
Ray Borg, Former UFC Title Contender, Retires
After missing weight for his Bellator bout this weekend, Ray Borg has decided to hang it up.
Borg confirmed his retirement with a post on Facebook.
“Things did not go as planned this weekend and I will not be fighting,” he wrote. “I made promise to myself that if another incident like this ever happened I would retire. So going forward I am officially out of the game and hanging it up.
“I just want to formally apologize to those I have let down and thank those that have been by my side throughout these crazy years. I am on a different journey in life now and I appreciate and love you all for always being team borg.”
Borg was scheduled to meet Kyoji Horiguchi on Saturday in his debut with Bellator. His UFC run also came to an end after several missed weights, but he was coming off three consecutive wins. Those three bouts came in the bantamweight division.
Immediately after the weigh-in failure, Borg’s management team, Dominance MMA, cut ties with him.
“Effective immediately, Dominance MMA will no longer serve as representation for Ray Borg,” they put out on Twitter. “We would like to apologize to Bellator MMA, American Top Team and Kyoji Horiguchi for the unprofessionalism displayed this week that has forced us to make this decision. All parties involved did their best to make this fight happen, including the late offer to book the matchup at 135 pounds, and we thank everyone involved for those efforts.
“Unfortunately, Mr. Borg was not willing or able to make that weight, resulting in unnecessary complications for all involved. Given the circumstances, as well as our own embarrassment, we can no longer in good faith represent our now former client but wish him the best in his future endeavors.”
