UFC 290 now has a second title fight.
Flyweight champion Brandon Moreno will defend his title against Alexandre Pantoja at the pay-per-view event taking place July 8 in Las Vegas. The fight was confirmed to ESPN by UFC chief business officer Hunter Campbell and is expected to be the co-main event.
Moreno recently became a two-time flyweight champion after unifying his titles with a third-round TKO win over Deiveson Figueiredo in their fourth fight back at UFC 283 in January.
Pantoja — who is on a three-fight winning streak — notably holds two victories over Moreno. He defeated him in an exhibition bout on The Ultimate Fighter in 2016 with a submission win before outpointing him in a pro bout in 2018. The Brazilian is coming off a submission win over former title challenger Alex Perez at UFC 277 in July.
UFC 290 is currently expected to be headlined by a featherweight title unification bout between Alexander Volkanovski and Yair Rodriguez.
Given that the event is taking place during International Fight Week, there was an expectation of a huge headliner for UFC 290 with fans eager to see a heavyweight title fight between current champion Jon Jones and Stipe Miocic.
However, MMA insider Ariel Helwani reported at the time that there was no talk of Jones vs. Miocic for the card and that looks to remain the case.
As per ESPN's Marc Raimondi, while there is interest from all parties in having Jones defend against Miocic, it is much more likely for the fall rather than at UFC 290.
“I've seen several tweets talking about Jones vs. Miocic at UFC 290 in July,” Raimondi tweeted. “That's still the fight all parties want next, but it won't happen in July and hasn't really been discussed for July in a while. Much more likely now for the fall.”
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