According to the report, a bantamweight championship tilt between
Petr
Yan and Jose Aldo is
also in the works for the event, as is Kamaru
Usman’s next welterweight title defense against Gilbert
Burns.
Volkanovski dethroned Holloway at UFC 245, winning a five-round
decision against the Hawaiian on Dec. 14. The City Kickboxing
representative is 8-0 in UFC competition and has won 18 consecutive
fights overall.
Holloway won 13 consecutive bouts from 2014 to 2019 — including a
pair of 145-pound title defense — but has lost two of his last
three Octagon appearances. “Blessed’s” 2019 included the
aforementioned setback to Volkanovski as well as a decision loss to
Dustin
Poirier in an interim lightweight title bout at UFC 236. In
between those two defeats, he outpointed Frankie
Edgar at UFC 240.