{"id":97963,"date":"2025-12-23T02:37:13","date_gmt":"2025-12-23T02:37:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/97963\/"},"modified":"2025-12-23T02:37:13","modified_gmt":"2025-12-23T02:37:13","slug":"mr-paige-vanzant-booked-against-contender-series-standout-for-ufc-houston","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/97963\/","title":{"rendered":"Mr. Paige VanZant booked against Contender Series standout for UFC Houston"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cThe Gentleman\u201d is headed to H-Town.<\/p>\n

Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) Welterweight Austin Vanderford \u2014 husband of Paige VanZant \u2014 is set to return to action against Contender Series standout Jean-Paul Lebosnoyani on Sat., Feb. 21, 2026, at UFC Houston<\/a> inside the Toyota Center in Houston, Texas.<\/p>\n

Advertisement<\/p>\n

Reporter Leo Guimaraes was first to report the booking<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Vanderford (13-3) is coming off the first UFC loss of his career, having been submitted by Ramiz Brahimaj at UFC 320<\/a> (watch highlights<\/a>), a defeat that snapped his two-fight winning streak.<\/p>\n

Before that setback, Vanderford made a statement in his UFC debut by dominating Nikolay Veretennikov en route to a second-round ground-and-pound stoppage \u2014 followed by a post-fight shove that added a little extra spice (watch highlights<\/a>).<\/p>\n

Now, he\u2019ll look to rebound against one of the more intriguing prospects from Season 9 of Contender Series<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Lebosnoyani (9-2) scored one of the most violent knockouts of the season during Week 4, wobbling Jack Congdon with a head kick before flattening him with a right hook (watch highlights<\/a>).<\/p>\n

Advertisement<\/p>\n

\u201cMufasa\u201d is riding a four-fight win streak, including three first-round knockouts. While known primarily for his elite grappling, the UFC rookie has clearly been sharpening his hands \u2014 something Vanderford will have to respect early.<\/p>\n

Here is what UFC Houston looks like now:<\/p>\n

Sean Strickland vs. Anthony Hernandez<\/a>
Ode Osbourne vs. Alibi Idiris
Juliana Miller vs. Carli Judice
Michel Pereira vs. Zachary Reese
Geoff Neal vs. Kevin Holland
Jacobe Smith vs. Ko Seok-hyeon
Luis Gurule vs. Alden Coria
Ante Delija vs. Serghei Spivac
Austin Vanderford vs. Jean-Paul Lebosnoyani<\/p>\n

To checkout UFC\u2019s upcoming schedule of events click here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cThe Gentleman\u201d is headed to H-Town. Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) Welterweight Austin Vanderford \u2014 husband of Paige VanZant…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":97964,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[45152,45155,56,58,57,45156,45159,45154,45158,45153,45157],"class_list":{"0":"post-97963","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-houston","8":"tag-austin-vanderford","9":"tag-contender-series","10":"tag-houston","11":"tag-houston-headlines","12":"tag-houston-news","13":"tag-jean-paul-lebosnoyani","14":"tag-leo-guimaraes","15":"tag-paige-vanzant","16":"tag-ramiz-brahimaj","17":"tag-ultimate-fighting-championship","18":"tag-vanderford"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97963","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=97963"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97963\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/97964"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=97963"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=97963"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=97963"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}