The UFC has just booked it’s first fight for next year, with Andrei Arlovski set to fight Waldo Cortes-Acosta at UFC Fight Night 235 on January 13th in Las Vegas.
Arlovski will be just a month shy of his 45th birthday by the time fight night rolls around, and he’ll be looking to halt a two-fight losing slump that’s seen him submitted by Marcos Rogerio de Lima last year and then TKO’d by Don’Tale Mayes in June.
However, Arlovski had been on a four-fight winning streak prior to that, and that’s no mean feat given that by April of next year Arlovski will have been competing professionally in the sport for 25 years!
Now Arlovski will be going up against the 31-year-old Cortes-Acosta, who initially joined via the Contender Series in the summer of last year and has so far compiled a 3-1 record in the Octagon.
Along the way he secured unanimous decision victories over Jared Vanderaa and Chase Sherman before losing out on the scorecards to Marcos Rogerio de Lima, but he’s since rebounded with a 1st round KO victory against Lukasz Brzeski last month.
Arlovski vs. Cortes-Acosta is currently the only fight booked for what appears to be the UFC’s first event of 2024.
