A pair of lightweight matches are planned for UFC’s return in New York City.
Multiple people with knowledge of the promotion’s plans confirmed to MMA Fighting that a bout between Dan Hooker and Claudio Puelles is set for UFC 281, which takes place Nov. 12 at Madison Square Garden. Twitter user FordewinMMA was first to report the booking.
In addition, Brad Riddell will also compete on the card as he’ll face Renato Moicano in a 155-pound showdown. Moicano’s management team KOReps first revealed the bout on Instagram on Friday.
Hooker will be joined by Israel Adesanya, his teammate and champion middleweight, on the fight card. They hope to rebound from their two-fight skid. “The Hangman” was stopped by Islam Makhachev and Arnold Allen in his two most recent outings, and has dropped four of five overall.
With five consecutive wins,
Puelles quietly rose to prominence as one of the dark horse competitors in the lightweight division. His impressive UFC career has seen “Prince Of Peru” win two consecutive kneebar submission victories and add three more.
Riddell hopes to be back on track after back-to back finish losses to Rafael Fiziev, Jalin Turner and Moicano. Moicano had just lost a pair of fights to Rafael dos Anjos in March, when he won unanimously in five rounds at UFC 272.
UFC 281 will be headlined by Adesanya defending his title against Alex Pereira, while Carla Esparza will make her first title defense since regaining the strawweight title against former champ Zhang Weili in the co-main event.
