With Tim Elliott out, Amir Albazi faces Francisco Figueiredo at UFC 278
UFC 278 is coming together with all sorts of exciting match ups, as the Ultimate Fighting Championship touches down in Salt Lake City, Utah for the first time at the Vivint Arena on August 20, 2022.
UFC welterweight champion Kamaru Usman aims to defend his title for the sixth-straight time opposing a former foe in no. 2 ranked Leon Edwards in the main event of the evening.
We also have a stellar bantamweight matchup between former multi-time WEC & UFC featherweight champion, no. 3 ranked Jose Aldo, who faces no. 6 ranked Merab Dvalishvili. Man, that’s going to be a good one!
Another exciting clash that’s recently been added to the card comes in the flyweight division between no. 12 ranked Amir Albazi and UFC flyweight champion Deiveson Figueiredo‘s little brother Francisco.
This is a very exciting matchup between two absolute stud grapplers with underrated striking.
Albazi came to the UFC in July of 2020, where he submitted Malcolm Gordon with a beautiful triangle choke toward the end of round one. Cancelled bouts against Raulian Paiva and Zhalgas Zhumagulov would follow, before he’d again be matched up with Zhumagulov, a former FNG flyweight champion, who he defeated via unanimous decision.
Unfortunate for Albazi, that was in January of 2021, and he’d have two more fight bookings cancelled with Ode Osbourne, and then former Titan FC flyweight champion Tim Elliott, before being matched up with Figueiredo.
The Brazilian talent made his promotional debut in January of 2021, where he defeated Jerome Rivera, winning the fight via unanimous decision, before losing a unanimous decision to Malcolm Gordon.
However, Figueiredo would rebound with an incredibly rare, but perfectly performed kneebar submission victory in April, doing so just 78 seconds into the opening round.
Both of these talents are quite technical on the feet, but the grappling is really where both men shine, with each of them boasting a black belt in the art.
Of Albazi’s 14 wins (14-1), four come via knockout with eight submissions and just two decisions; and of Figueiredo’s 13 wins (13-4-1-1), three come via knockout, and he too has eight submissions and two decisions.
That alone explains how great of a job these matchmakers did pairing these two up together.
How do you see this one between Amir Albazi and Francisco Figueiredo going down at UFC 278?
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