Aleksei Oleinik has withdrawn from UFC 270 next weekend for undisclosed reasons, and that means Greg Hardy now has a new opponent for the final fight on his current UFC deal.
Former NFL player Hardy will now be fighting Sergei Spivak, who steps in on just over a week’s notice for the bout, which will take place on the main card of the pay-per-view event.
Spivak actually beat Oleinik by unanimous decision back in June of last year. That was his third win in a row at the time, having also TKO’d Jared Vanderaa and claimed a majority decision win over Carlos Felipe.
However, the 26-year-old has since gone on to suffer a TKO loss against Tom Aspinall in September, leaving his overall UFC record to date at 4-3.
As for Hardy, he approaches the end of his UFC contract in real need of a reversal of fortunes after suffering back-to-back losses via strikes in his last two outings, with Marcin Tybura TKO’ing him back in December of 2020 and then Tai Tuivasa knocking him out in the summer of last year.
That leaves the 33-year-old Hardy with a 4-4 (+1nc) record overall in the Octagon as he prepares to compete on an injury-ravaged UFC 270 event that still proceeds with a major heavyweight title headliner as Francis Ngannou fights Ciryl Gane, with a flyweight trilogy title fight between Brandon Moreno and Deiveson Figueiredo serving as the co-main event.
