Paul Craig To Fight Rodolfo Bellato At UFC Fight night 257

Paul Craig’s next fight will be against Rodolfo Bellato at UFC Fight Night 257 in Las Vegas on May 17th.

The 37-year-old Craig will be moving back up to light-heavyweight for this fight as he tries to put an end to a bad run of form that’s seen him win just once in his past six Octagon appearances.

A switch back up in weight won’t automatically fix his problems though, as Craig’s drop down to 185lbs had been prompted by back-to-back defeats at 205lbs against Volkan Oezdemir and Johnny walker.

Craig did get off to a good start at middleweight in 2023 though with a TKO victory over Andre Muniz, but he’s since went on a three-fight losing slump against Brendan Allen, Caio Borralho and Bo Nickal.

Now Craig will fight the 29-year-old Bellato, who joined the promotion from the Contender Series in 2023 and earned a TKO victory over Ihor Poteira in his UFC debut, before fighting to a majority draw verdict against Jimmy Crute last month.

Craig vs. Bellato joins a UFC Fight Night 257 card that was originally scheduled to take place in Qatar, but then was switched to the UFC’s own Apex facility for reasons unknown. The event doesn’t yet have a confirmed headliner, but will feature the likes of Curtis Blaydes vs. Rizvan Kuniev, Johnny Walker vs. Azmat Murzakanov and Sergey Spivak vs. Shamil Gaziev.