Jalin Turner has changed his mind about retiring and is now set to fight Edson Barboza at the UFC 323 event on December 6th.
Turner has had a tough few years, losing four of his last five fights, and it seemed that his latest defeat by submission to Ignacious Bahamondes at UFC 313 in March was the final straw as he left his gloves in the Octagon that night, despite still only being 29-years-old.
However, he’s since had time to reflect on that decision and the now 30-year-old has decided to fight on after all and hope to rediscover the form that saw him go on a five-fight winning streak from 2020 to 2022.
To break his losing streak he’ll have to best a true veteran of the sport in the 39-year-old Barboza, who is himself coming off back-to-back defeats.
Barboza’s certainly no longer in his prime when he was considered one of the sport’s elite strikers, but he’s still a challenging opponent for anyone in the division on the feet.
Turner vs. Barboza joins a UFC 323 that’s set to mark the end of the pay-per-view era for the promotion as they prepare to move on to a new broadcasting deal with Paramount+ that’ll see the numbered events air without any additional charges beyond the monthly subscription fee.
The company are planning to mark the moment with a stacked card though, with UFC 232 set to be headlined by a bantamweight title rematch between Merab Dvalishvili and Petr Yan, while flyweight champ Alexandre Pantoja goes up against Joshua Van in the co-main event, in addition to the likes of Jan Blachowicz vs. Bogdan Guskov, Brandon Moreno vs. Tatsuro Taira and Henry Cejudo vs. Payton Talbott.
