Edson Barboza vs. Lerone Murphy has been announced as the headliner for UFC Fight Night 242 at the UFC APEX facility in Las Vegas on May 18th.
The 38-year-old Barboza picked up back-to-back wins last year, starting with a first round KO against Billy Quarantillo in April that earned him his latest ‘Performance Of The Night’ bonus.
Following on from that he defeated Sodiq Yusuff in the main event of UFC Fight Night 230 in October via unanimous decision, earning ‘Fight Of The Night’ honors in the process.
That leaves Barboza ranked No .11 in the featherweight division heading into his next fight against the undefeated 13-0-1 Murphy, who is broken into the rankings at No.14 after six wins without defeat in the UFC so far.
The 32-year-old Murphy drew with Zubaira Tukhugov in his UFC debut back in 2019, but since then he has strung together a series of wins, beating the likes of Ricardo Ramos, Douglas Silva de Andrade, Makwan Amirkhani, Gabriel Santos and most recently Joshua Culibao along the way.
Barboza vs. Murphy fronts a UFC Fight Night 242 show that will also feature the likes of Angela Hill vs. Luana Pinheiro, Tim Elliott vs. Tatsuro Taira and Warlley Alves vs. Abu Magomedov.
