{"id":356505,"date":"2025-12-19T23:46:08","date_gmt":"2025-12-19T23:46:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/356505\/"},"modified":"2025-12-19T23:46:08","modified_gmt":"2025-12-19T23:46:08","slug":"top-10-middleweights-clash-at-ufc-326","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/356505\/","title":{"rendered":"Top 10 middleweights clash at UFC 326"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">A pair of top 10 middleweights look to get back on track after recent losses when Reinier de Ridder clashes with Caio Borralho at UFC 326 on March 7 at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">Multiple people with knowledge of the promotion\u2019s plans confirmed the matchup to MMA Fighting following an initial report from <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/leoguimaraesmma\/status\/2000956661029061090\" rel=\"nofollow\">Leo Guimaraes <\/a>on social media.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">A former two-division ONE Championship titleholder, de Ridder made an immediate impact after signing with the UFC, scoring four consecutive wins including victories over ex-UFC middleweight champion Robert Whittaker and highly touted prospect Bo Nickal.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">It appeared de Ridder was likely one more win away from a title shot but then he ran into a brick wall named Brendan Allen in the main event of UFC Vancouver. The rough outing ended with de Ridder unable to answer the bell after the fourth round and the fight was stopped with Allen earning the TKO victory.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">Now the Dutch grappler attempts to get back on track when he returns in March. The same can be said for Borralho, who was on a similar trajectory in his career until a recent loss of his own.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">After amassing a 7-0 record in the UFC, Borralho came up short in his bid to enter title contention after he fell to Nassourdine Imavov in September. Borralho has only tasted defeat twice in his career and he\u2019ll attempt to prevent a third when he faces de Ridder.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">The middleweights join a growing lineup headed to UFC 326 with \u201cBMF\u201d champion Max Holloway putting his title on the line against Charles Oliveira in the main event.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">Guilherme Cruz contributed to this report.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A pair of top 10 middleweights look to get back on track after recent losses when Reinier de&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":356506,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[444],"tags":[49,48,641,701,638,82,640,702],"class_list":{"0":"post-356505","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mma","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-fighting","11":"tag-latest-news","12":"tag-mma","13":"tag-sports","14":"tag-ufc","15":"tag-ufc-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/356505","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=356505"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/356505\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/356506"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=356505"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=356505"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=356505"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}