{"id":359443,"date":"2025-12-21T09:15:16","date_gmt":"2025-12-21T09:15:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/359443\/"},"modified":"2025-12-21T09:15:16","modified_gmt":"2025-12-21T09:15:16","slug":"ufc-announces-slew-of-fights-for-ufc-326-including-brian-ortegas-lightweight-debut","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/359443\/","title":{"rendered":"UFC announces slew of fights for UFC 326, including Brian Ortega\u2019s lightweight debut"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">UFC 326 is starting to take shape.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">UFC 326 takes place in March and will be headlined by a \u201cBMF\u201d title fight between Max Holloway and Charles Oliveira. On Saturday, the UFC announced several more marquee matchups that will serve as support for the main event.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">Brian Ortega will make his long-anticipated move to the lightweight division and immediately gets a top 10 opponent as he faces former lightweight title challenger Renato Moicano. Ortega is a two-time featherweight title challenger, but has struggled to make 145 pounds recently. He lost a unanimous decision to Aljamain Sterling at UFC Shanghai in his most recent bout.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">Moicano had a similarly tough 2025, losing a short-notice lightweight title fight to Islam Makhachev in January, and then dropping a unanimous decision to Beneil Dariush at UFC 317 in June.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">Former bantamweight champion Cody Garbrandt returns to action against Road to UFC Season 2 runner-up Xiao Long in a 135-pound bout. Garbrandt is riding a two-fight losing streak entering the contest, dropping a unanimous decision to Raoni Barcelos at UFC Atlanta in his most recent bout. Xiao is also coming off a loss, dropping a decision to Su Young You at UFC Shanghai in August.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">A pair of middleweight bouts were also announced for the event, a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mmafighting.com\/ufc\/462468\/top-10-middleweights-clash-at-ufc-326\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">previously reported<\/a> top 10 middleweight matchup between Reinier de Ridder and Caio Borralho, and a fight between former title challenger Paulo Costa and surging contender Bruno Ferreira. Costa recently won a unanimous decision over Roman Kopylov at UFC 318, while Ferreira enters the contest on a three-fight winning streak, having beaten Marvin Vettori at UFC 323.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">UFC 326 takes place on March 7 at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"UFC 326 is starting to take shape. UFC 326 takes place in March and will be headlined by&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":359444,"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-359443","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\/359443","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=359443"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/359443\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/359444"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=359443"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=359443"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=359443"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}