A middleweight fight between Derek Brunson and Jared Cannonier has been shifted from the UFC 270 event in Anaheim, California on January 22nd to UFC 271, which takes place in Houston, Texas on February 12th.
No reason for the switch has been revealed so far for pushing the match-up back three weeks.
However, it may be that the promotion were looking to bolster the UFC 271 line-up headlined by middleweight champion Israel Adesanya vs. Robert Whittaker since it is relatively light on big fights beyond that, whereas UFC 270 has a co-main event flyweight trilogy battle between Brandon Moreno and Deiveson Figueiredo backing up it’s headlining heavyweight title clash between Francis Ngannou and Ciryl Gane.
Brunson is currently ranked No.4 in the middleweight division after compiling a five fight winning streak over the past few years, including picking up victories over Kevin Holland and Darren Till in 2021.
As for Cannonier, he is actually one place higher at No.3 after putting together a 4-1 run since dropping down to middleweight, defeating the likes of Anderson Silva, Jack Hermansson and most recently Kelvin Gastelum along the way.
Other match-ups currently attached to the UFC 271 event include Alexander Hernandez vs. Renato Moicano, Vinc Pichel vs. Mark Madsen and Roxanne Modafferi’s retirement fight against Casey O’Neill.
