Deiveson Figueiredo to Remain at 125 Pounds, Faces Manel Kape at UFC 290

Former Ultimate Fighting Championship flyweight king Deiveson Figueiredo is not quite so eager to leave his old stomping ground just yet.

Ex-champ Figueiredo (21-3-1) lost his title in his tetralogy match with Brandon Moreno at UFC 283 in January. and subsequently suggested he was planning on moving to bantamweight going forward. Those plans for the 35-year-old are currently on hold, as instead, he will be staying at flyweight to take on Manel Kape (18-6) this July. Per ESPN Deportes on Thursday, Figueiredo and Kape will battle it out at UFC 290, which is set to go down in the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas on July 8.

This will be Figueiredo’s first opponent not named Moreno in over two and a half years – spanning the entirety of his upcoming foe’s UFC tenure thus far. The Brazilian embarked on the UFC’s first quadrilogy series when he first met Moreno at UFC 256 in 2020, and then encountered him three more times in 2021, 2022 and 2023. The fourth match for all the proverbial marbles did not go his way, as the doctors halted the match at the end of Round 3 due to damage suffered on his eye. Figueiredo ended the series at 1-2-1, and has since stated that he now plans on taking three more bouts at flyweight before changing weight categories.

Since starting his UFC run off at 0-2 with two contentious decision defeats to top contenders Alexandre Pantoja and Matheus Nicolau, “Starboy” has rattled off three straight wins. A pair of knockouts over Ode Osbourne and Zhalgas Zhumagulov led to a meeting with David Dvorak in December, which resulted in Kape’s first decision victory since July 2013. Both men celebrate stellar finish rates, with Figueiredo's 81% surpassed by Kape's 89%.

UFC 290 will take place in Las Vegas at the T-Mobile Arena at the end of the UFC’s annual International Fight Week. The headliner has not yet been made official, but a pair of championship tilts stack the limited July 8 lineup so far. Alexander Volkanovski will drop back down to featherweight to defend his 145-pound throne against interim beltholder Yair Rodriguez, while Moreno will attempt to make the first defense of his flyweight crown in a rematch with Pantoja. The only other bout announced thus far is a middleweight scrap pitting Bo Nickal against Tresean Gore.