A light-heavyweight fight between Robert Whittaker and Bogdan Guskov will serve as the co-main event for UFC Fight Night 297 in Sydney, Australia on February 7th.

35-year-old former middleweight champion Whittaker is coming off a TKO win over Nikita Krylov in his first fight up at 205lbs back in July.

Before that Whittaker’s hopes of having one last run at the 185lb title before retiring had been dashed after suffering back-to-back defeats against Khamzat Chimaev via submission and Reiner de Ridder via split-decision.

That prompted his move up to light-heavyweight, and the win over Krylov has now given him a new sense of purpose, and he’s currently ranked No.11 in the weight class.

As for the 34-year-old Guskov, he’s coming off a 5th round TKO loss to former champion Magomed Ankalaev in July, which follows on from a majority draw with another former titleholder Jan Blachowicz.

Guskov had been on a four-fight winning streak prior to that though and so still holds the No.10 spot on the Meta rankings heading into this newly announced match-up early next year.

Whittaker vs. Guskov will serve as the lead-in to the UFC Fight Night 297 main event between Quillan Salkilld and Benoit Saint Denis.