Former bantamweight champion Cody Garbrandt will return against Julio Arce at UFC 285 on March 4th in Las Vegas.
The 31-year-old Garbrandt faces the daunting challenge of trying to overcome a very bad run of form that’s seen him lose five of his last six fights in the UFC, and worse still, four of those defeats came via either KO or TKO.
It all began with a TKO title loss to TJ Dillashaw back in 2017, followed by a 1st round KO defeat in their subsequent rematch.
At the time it seemed like perhaps his old teammate and bitter rival just had his number, but then Pedro Munhoz also TKO’d him in the first round of his next fight.
Garbrandt did then claim a much needed win against Raphael Assuncao by KO, but he’s since gone on to lose by decision to Rob Font and then most recently suffer another 1st round TKO loss against Kai Kara-France.
As for Arce, the 33-year-old has alternated between wins and losses for most of his 5-4 UFC run, picking up wins over the likes of Dan Ige, Daniel Teymur, Julian Erosa and Andre Ewell along the way, while suffering losses to fighters like Song Yadong, Hakeem Dawodu and most recently Montel Jackson just last month.
Garbrandt vs. Arce joins a UFC 285 card that doesn’t yet have a main or co-main event established, but will also feature Amanda Ribas vs. Viviane Araujo.
