Cody Garbrandt will stay on the card for the UFC 285 event in Las Vegas on March 4th after his original opponent Julio Arce withdrew due to an injured knee that requires surgery.
Now Garbrandt will be going up against Trevin Jones, who steps up to take the fight on a month’s notice.
The 32-year-old Jones has struggled to make an impact in his five-fight run in the UFC so far, and is coming off three losses in a row over the past year-and-a-half.
Jones had actually picked up a TKO win over Timur Valiev in his UFC debut back in August of 2020, only to then see it amended to a no-contest ruling after he tested positive for marijuana.
He shook off that early setback with a TKO victory against Mario Bautista, but then came a slump in form that’s seen him be submitted by Saidyokub Kakhramonov and lose out on the scorecards to Javid Basharat and Raoni Barcelos.
As such it’s a significant step down in competition for former bantamweight champion Garbrandt, who is himself toiling in the division these days after losing five of his last six fights, though the difference is that he was consistently fighting top-flight competition, being bested by the likes of TJ Dillashaw (x2), Pedro Munhoz, Rob Font and Kai Kara-France.
Garbrandt vs. Jones takes place on a UFC 285 card that is fronted by a blockbuster headliner as Jon Jones returns to fight Ciryl Gane for the vacant heavyweight title, while women’s flyweight champion Valentina Shevchenko makes her latest title defense against Alexa Grasso.
