Carlos Diego Ferreira out, Drakkar Klose now meets Rafa Garcia at UFC 277

UFC 277 is quickly approaching, as it goes down next weekend on July 30, 2022, live from the American Airlines Center in Dallas, Texas.

Headlined by a UFC women’s bantamweight championship rematch between current champion Julianna Pena and former champion (current featherweight champion) Amanda Nunes, and co-headlined by another championship rematch between former champion Brandon Moreno and no. 2 ranked Kai Kara-France, UFC 277 has become a highly anticipated event.

UFC lightweight prospect Drakkar Klose was initially slated against Carlos Diego Ferreira for this event as well, however, Ferreira was forced out of the bout earlier this week with an injury, and the UFC replaced him with Rafa Garcia.

Drakkar Klose has done pretty well for himself since joining the promotion, coming over in 2017 with a record of 6-0-1. He’s since gone 6-2, only losing to David Teymur and current no. 6 ranked Beneil Dariush.

Teymur is a 39-1 professional kickboxer, whereas that fight played out entirely on the feet, and it was looking like he was about to march straight through Dariush until he was viciously KO’d.

If there’s one critique fans could’ve had about Klose, it’s that he wasn’t much of a finisher.

His first five promotional wins all came via decision.

However, he returned this April after nearly two years away to TKO Brandon Jenkins early on in round two to claim the Performance of the Night award. He looked absolutely incredible in that fight.

Rafa Garcia on the other hand came to the UFC last year in 2021 with a record of 12-0. Though he’d drop to 12-2 over the course of his first two promotional bouts, he’d win his last two-straight, finishing off with a second-round rear naked choke finish of Jesse Ronson.

This is an interesting matchup between two talented lightweights with similar records, and similar experience.

Klose has had 15 MMA fights, going 12-2-1, and Garcia has had 16 MMA fights, going 14-2 thus far into his career.

Who walks away from this lightweight match up at UFC 277 the victor?

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Brady Ordway

I became a fan of combat sports when I was 12 years old. I was scrolling through the channels and landed upon Versus, where WEC was televised. Urijah Faber fought Jens Pulver for the second time that night. That's the first fight I ever saw, and I was immediately hooked. So eventually, I began covering the sport in the fourth quarter of 2018, and have since started writing about animals as well. If you'd like to see those pieces, be sure to check out learnaboutnature.com!

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