Bryce Mitchell will now fight Ilia Topuria at UFC 282 in Las Vegas on December 10th after his first headliner booking in November fell through.
The in-form Mitchell had been sent to front the UFC Fight Night 214 event on November 5th against Movsar Evloev, but his opponent was forced out due to an injury earlier this month.
So now Mitchell has landed a new opponent in Topuria a little over a month later, and it comes at a time when the 28-year-old is wielding a perfect 15-0 record, including having amassed five wins in a row since joining the UFC in 2018.
Mitchell’s impressive UFC run began with decision wins over Tyler Diamond and Bobby Moffett, while he then pulled off a rarely seen Twister submission against Matt Sayles.
Two more wins against Charles Rosa and Andre Fili followed in 2020, while earlier this year, Mitchell bagged his biggest win to date when he earned a unanimous decisiosn victory over Edson Barboza to take the No.9 spot in the featherweight rankings.
Now Mitchell goes up against another undefeated fighter in Topuria, who holds a 12-0 career record and has four wins inside the UFC’s Octagon since making his debut in 2020 with a decision win against Youseff Zalal.
Topuria has turned up the heat since by registering three KO victories in a row against Damon Jackson, Ryan Hall and Jai Herbert, moving him into the No.14 spot on the rankings.
Mitchell vs. Topuria joins an increasingly stacked end-of-year UFC 282 event that will be headlined by a light-heavyweight rematch between Jiri Prochazka and Glover Teixeira, with other major fights including Jiri Prochazka vs. Magomed Ankalaev, Robbie lawler vs. Santiago Ponzinibbio, Darren Till vs. Driscus du Plessis and Alexander Gustafsson vs. OSP.
