The UFC had been left scrambling to find a new opponent for Alex Oliveira at this weekend’s UFC Fight Night 186 event in Las Vegas after Randy Brown was forced to withdraw for reasons that haven’t yet been disclosed, and now they’ve revealed who it will be.
‘Cowboy’ will now fight Ramazan Kuramagomedov, who will be making his UFC debut after compiling a perfect 8-0 record to date.
Interestingly, Kuramagomedov actually won a fight over Jordan Williams on the Contender Series back in the summer of 2019, but Dana White disagreed with the split decision ruling and said “he needs work,”, opting not to sign him at that stage.
Since then Kuramagomedov has picked up a further two submission wins on the regional circuit and now finally gets a chance to compete in the UFC and prove his worth.
It’s a tough first match-up though, coming in on less than a week’s notice to fight a veteran like Oliveira, but the Brazilian did lose last time out against Shavkat Rakhmonov at UFC 254 in October of last year.
Before that the 33-year-old Oliveira had picked up back-to-back wins in 2020 over Peter Sobotta and Max Griffin.
Oliveira vs. Kuramagomedov adds to a UFC Fight Night 186 card that will be headlined by a heavyweight encounter between Jairzinho Rozenstruik and Ciryl Gane.