Uriah Hall is coming back to primetime with his scheduled bout against Sean Strickland moved to the main event of the July 31 Fight Night card.
Originally scheduled to take place at UFC 265, Uriah Hall’s tangle with Sean Strickland will now occur on the July 31 Fight Night per an ESPN report. The last time Hall competed in the main event was this past October against the great Anderson Silva. For Strickland, this will be his first time in the feature slot. In fact, in Strickland’s 13-year MMA career, he has only fought past the third round one time in a bout that predated his UFC arrival by one year.
Both ranked in the middleweight division, Uriah Hall will have an opportunity to creep closer and closer to the top 5 with a win over Strickland. Currently sitting at #8, Hall entered the promotion as one of the hottest prospects after a standout run on season 17 of The Ultimate Fighter. Hall did not win the tournament but has gone on to rack up a winning promotional record of 10-7 with a couple performance bonuses to boot. The 36-year-old is making a late-career surge with four consecutive wins and might just be a couple solid wins away from getting his first title shot in the promotion.
Standing in his way of achieving that is fellow UFC vet Sean Strickland. Also experiencing an unexpected surge after several years in the promotion, Strickland has matched Hall’s streak at four straight. Someone’s streak will inevitably come to an end, and “Tarzan” will most certainly hope that it won’t be his that dims under the bright lights of his first UFC main event. If he should avoid this fate and venture into five-straight territory, an entry into the division’s top 10 seems inevitable, and the incoming challenges will only stiffen.
With the main event now locked and loaded, here is the current lineup for the July 31 Fight Night card:
Uriah Hall vs. Sean Strickland
Bryan Barberana vs. Jason Witt
Kyung Ho Kang vs. Rani Yahya
Mounir Lazzez vs. Niklas Stozle
Jinh Yu Frey vs. Ashley Yoder
Dooho Choi vs. Danny Chavez
Rafa Garcia vs. Chris Gruetzemacher
Collin Anglin vs. Melsik Baghdasaryan
Orion Cosce vs. Phillip Rowe
Cheyanne Buys vs. Gloria de Paula
