A welterweight fight between Geoff Neal and Rafael dos Anjos has been added to an already stacked UFC 308 card in Abu Dhabi on October 26th.
The 33-year-old Neal is coming in off back to back losses, but what may soften the blow is that his opponents were both unbeaten fighter who are considered to be potential title contenders in the future.
First came Shavkat Rakhmonov, who earned a third-round submission victory over Neal last year, while back in February Ian Garry was able to narrowly beat him by split-decision too, resulting in him sliding to No.10 in the 170lb rankings.
Now he’ll go up against Dos Anjos, who will actually turn 40-years-old on the day of the event.
The former lightweight champion has been somewhat restlessly shifting between the 155lb and 170lb divisions lately. In late 2022 he beat Bryan Barberena on the scorecards at welterweight, but after losing on the scorecards to Vicente Luque a year ago he moved back down to lightweight and was beaten by Mateusz Gamrot.
Neal vs. RDA joins a UFC 308 card that will be headlined by a featherweight title fight between Ilia Topuria and Max Holloway, while Robert Whittaker vs. Khamzat Chimaev, Ciryl Gane vs. Alexander Volkov and Magomed Ankalaev vs. Aleksander Rakic are also all official for the show.
