A bantamweight fight between Henry Cejudo and Payton Talbott has been announced for the UFC 323 event on December 6th in Las Vegas.

Cejudo retired from the sport back in 2020 while he was still at the top of the game as a two-division champion at flyweight and bantamweight, but his decision to make a comeback three years later hasn’t gone according to plan.

The 38-year-old Cejudo is now on a three-fight losing slump that initially saw him narrowly lose to Aljamain Sterling via split-decision in an immediate title shot back in May of 2023.

He then suffered a unanimous decision loss to soon-to-be champion Merab Dvalishvili, while in February of this year he lost a technical decision to Song Yadong after suffering an eye-poke in the final round.

Now Cejudo moves on to fight a highly-touted Contender Series recruit in the 27-year-old Talbott, who has gone 4-1 in the promotion so far.

Talbott hit the ground running when he debuted back in November of 2023, going on to rack up three stoppage wins in the space of seven months.

A unanimous decision loss to Raoni Barcelos at the start of this year temporarily derailed his momentum, but Talbott has since got back on track with a unanimous decision victory over Felipe Lima in June.

Talbott is currently unranked, but a win over a big name like the No.10 ranked Cejudo could change all that.

Cejudo vs. Talbott joins a UFC 323 card that’s set to be headlined by a bantamweight title fight between Merab Dvalishvili and Petr Yan, while flyweight champ Deiveson Figueiredo fights Joshua Van in the co-main event.

The stacked final PPV event of the year will also feature the likes of Jan Blachowicz vs. Bogdan Guskov, Brandon Moreno vs. Tatsuro Taira and Marvin Vettori vs. Brunno Ferreira.