{"id":701055,"date":"2026-05-28T23:59:08","date_gmt":"2026-05-28T23:59:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/701055\/"},"modified":"2026-05-28T23:59:08","modified_gmt":"2026-05-28T23:59:08","slug":"ufc-oklahoma-city-adds-2-marquee-matchups-including-past-title-challenger","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/701055\/","title":{"rendered":"UFC Oklahoma City adds 2 marquee matchups, including past title challenger"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1upudxki _174s0un1 _174s0un0 _1mt21p01\">UFC Oklahoma City is starting to fill up with some big names.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1upudxki _174s0un1 _174s0un0 _1mt21p01\">On Thursday, the UFC announced one-time middleweight title challenger Jared Cannonier will face rising contender Christian Leroy Duncan in a pivotal matchup between ranked fighters, while in the welterweight division, fan-favorite fighter Kevin Holland looks to turn back hot prospect Jacobe Smith in a key welterweight matchup.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1upudxki _174s0un1 _174s0un0 _1mt21p01\">Currently ranked No. 14 in the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mmafighting.com\/rankings\/482559\/mma-divisional-rankings-ufc-327-star-josh-hokit-is-the-heavyweight-man-of-the-hour\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">MMA Fighting Global Rankings<\/a>, Cannonier (18-9) has gone through a rough patch lately, losing three of his past four fights. Most recently, the 42-year-old \u201cKilla Gorilla\u201d dropped a unanimous decision to Michael \u201cVenom\u201d Page at UFC 319 in August.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1upudxki _174s0un1 _174s0un0 _1mt21p01\">One of the best English fighters in the UFC today, Duncan (14-2) is riding a four-fight winning streak. \u201cCLD\u201d had a tremendous 2025, racking up three wins, including back-to-back spinning knockouts, and earning <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mmafighting.com\/latest-news\/463695\/2025-all-violence-team-who-were-the-most-memorable-fighters-in-each-weight-class-this-year\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">2025 MMA Fighting Third Team All-Violence honors<\/a>. He followed that up with a unanimous decision win over Roman Dolidze in March at UFC London.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1upudxki _174s0un1 _174s0un0 _1mt21p01\">One of the most active fighters in the UFC, Holland (29-15) fought five times in 2025, going just 2-3 in that stretch, including a two-fight losing streak to end the year. Holland rebounded in April, though, picking up a unanimous decision win over Randy Brown at UFC 327.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1upudxki _174s0un1 _174s0un0 _1mt21p01\">UFC Oklahoma City takes place July 18 at Paycom Center in Oklahoma City. The main event is rumored to be a middleweight bout between former champion Dricus du Plessis and former welterweight champion Kamaru Usman, though nothing has been announced officially at this time.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"UFC Oklahoma City is starting to fill up with some big names. On Thursday, the UFC announced one-time&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":701056,"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-701055","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\/701055","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=701055"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/701055\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/701056"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=701055"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=701055"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=701055"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}