he UFC return to St Louis this Saturday (May 11) with a stacked 13 fight card, with a big Heavyweight clash topping the bill.
Derrick Lewis will look to get back to winning ways in the main event when he faces the ever-dangerous Rodrigo Nascimento. In his pre-fight interview, Lewis revealed that he feels in he has just hit is prime and is looking forward to displaying it in his first outing of 2024. On a four fight unbeaten run, Nascimento believes he has the power and the capability to knock Lewis out but is ready and willing should he need to, to earn the biggest win of his career.
In the co-main event, Joaquin Buckley will return to his home town to face the promotionally unbeaten Nursulton Ruziboev. Since his drop to Welterweight, Buckley is yet to taste defeat and burst into the rankings earlier in the year with a second round stoppage against Vincente Luque in March. Ruziboev also featured that night and extended his unbeaten run to 10 with a first round stoppage against Sedriques Dumas.
Carlos Ulberg will eventually make the walk to the octagon for the first time this year when he meets Alonso Menifeld in a Light Heavyweight contest. Ulberg has been matched four times so far this year, twice against Dominic Reyes and once against Menifeld with all three bouts falling through. After losing his promotional debut, Ulberg has been on a tear, going unbeaten in 5 and picking up 4 stoppage victories in the process. Menifeld is in a similar run of form also unbeaten in 5 with big wins against Jimmy Crute, Dustin Jacoby and Askar Mozharov.
After a three fight skid, Diego Ferreira returned to winning ways a little under a year ago with a second round stoppage over Michael Johnson. The Brazillian faces Mateusz Rebecki in his first outing of 2024. After signing with the promotion following a first round submission win on the 2022 season of the Contender Series, Rebecki competed three times in 2023, securing three victories and continuing his decade long unbeaten run.
Robelis Despaigne had what would be considered by many as a dream promotional debut, with an 18 second knock out against John Parisian at UFC 299. Across all five of his professional fights, Despaigne is yet to spend 6 minutes inside the cage and ‘The Big Boy’ will no doubt want to secure another first round finish against Waldo Cortes-Acosta. Cortes-Acosta enters the contest with back to back wins and holds a 4-1 promotional record.
Elsewhere on the card, Chase Hooper faces Viacheslav Borshchev, Terrance McKinney returns to the cage in a Lightweight contest against Esteban Ribovics, Tabatha Ricci and Tecia Torres will square off and former Cage Warriors champion Jake Hadley returns to the fold.
