{"id":700473,"date":"2026-05-28T17:40:08","date_gmt":"2026-05-28T17:40:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/700473\/"},"modified":"2026-05-28T17:40:08","modified_gmt":"2026-05-28T17:40:08","slug":"matt-schnell-gets-new-opponent-9-days-ahead-of-ufc-vegas-118","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/700473\/","title":{"rendered":"Matt Schnell gets new opponent 9 days ahead of UFC Vegas 118"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1upudxki _174s0un1 _174s0un0 _1mt21p01\">Alessandro Costa replaces Imanol Rodriguez against Matt Schnell at UFC Vegas 118, an event booked for the Meta APEX on June 6, MMA Fighting has learned.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1upudxki _174s0un1 _174s0un0 _1mt21p01\">The new matchup will be contested at a catchweight of 130 pounds.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1upudxki _174s0un1 _174s0un0 _1mt21p01\">It\u2019s still unclear what led to Rodriguez\u2019s removal from the card.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1upudxki _174s0un1 _174s0un0 _1mt21p01\">Costa and Schnell were scheduled to face each other before in the UFC in September of 2024, but the Brazilian was forced off the bout just days before the card. Cody Durden signed in as a replacement and defeated Schnell via submission.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1upudxki _174s0un1 _174s0un0 _1mt21p01\">Schnell (17-10, 1 NC) now faces Costa, looking to rebound from a loss to Joseph Morales in November of 2025, and having won only three of his past 10 octagon appearances.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1upudxki _174s0un1 _174s0un0 _1mt21p01\">Costa (15-5) won his most recent fight in the UFC in April, pocketing a Performance of the Night bonus check for a second-round knockout over Stewart Nicoll. Costa is now 3-3 in the UFC with bonuses cashed for every victory.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1upudxki _174s0un1 _174s0un0 _1mt21p01\">UFC Vegas 118 is headlined by a welterweight showdown between former champion Belal Muhammad and Gabriel Bonfim.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1upudxki _174s0un1 _174s0un0 _1mt21p01\">Damon Martin contributed to this report.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Alessandro Costa replaces Imanol Rodriguez against Matt Schnell at UFC Vegas 118, an event booked for the Meta&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":700474,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[570],"tags":[64,63,786,1347,785,85,787,1396],"class_list":["post-700473","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mma","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-fighting","tag-latest-news","tag-mma","tag-sports","tag-ufc","tag-ufc-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/700473","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=700473"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/700473\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/700474"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=700473"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=700473"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=700473"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}