Movsar Evloev vs. Aaron Pico Confirmed For UFC On ABC 9

A major featherweight fight between Movsar Evloev and Aaron Pico has been announced for UFC On ABC 9 in Abu Dhabi on July 26th.

The 31-year-old Evloev is undefeated in his 19-fight career to date, including going 9-0 since arriving in the UFC back in 2019.

Along the way Evloev has bested the likes of former bantamweight champion Aljamain Sterling, recent title challenger Diego Lopes and Arnold Allen on the scorecards, taking him up to No.4 in the rankings.

With that kind of form Evloev may well have been hoping that a title opportunity could be in the works, but despite current champion Alexander Volkanovski having declared his interest in fighting him, the UFC have decided to go in a different direction.

As such, Evloev has been chosen to welcome the debuting Pico to the UFC after his recent signing following a long-run in the Bellator promotion.

The 28-year-old Pico had been marked out as a potential star from the very start of his career after being a stand-out college wrestler who competed in the Olympic team trials back in 2016, while also having previous striking experience as a Golden Gloves and Pankration champion in his teenage years.

Pico was immediately picked up by bellator, but his pro-debut didn’t go according to plan, suffering a 24 second submission loss. However, he soon rebounded and finished his next four opponents via strikes in the opening round.

Just when it looked like Pico was living up to the hype he was then KO’d in 67 seconds and TKO’d in his next bout after that, which threatened to completely upend his career before it really took off.

However, Pico has since gone 9-1 in his last 10 fights, with his only defeat during that time being due to a shoulder injury, so while he never fought for a title during his Bellator run, he’s still seen as an exciting addition to the UFC’s roster, and as such has been thrown straight into a major fight.

Evloev vs. Pico joins a UFC On ABC 9 card that is expected to be headlined by a fight between former middleweight champion Robert Whittaker and former two-division ONE FC kingpin Reiner de Ridder, while Shara Magomedov vs. Marc-Andre Barriault and Nikita Krylov vs. Bogdan Guskov are also on the line-up.