First-Ever UFC Halloween Card Announced; Hardy-Greene, Jacoby-Ledet Slated

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Cats out of the bag.... I’ll let u guess who’s the #trick and who is gonna get the #treat they are never easy at this level but I will settle in for 3 hard to kinda of #work #worksmarter #mma #ufc #heavyweight #heavyhitters #focused #espn #lfg #thecrochetboss

A post shared by Maurice Greene (@thecrochetboss) on Aug 14, 2020 at 1:31pm PDT

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Holidays will have to make way for the Ultimate Fighting Championship on its current run.

The Las Vegas-based promotion will not take a week off for a long time, with an upcoming show announced by MMA Junkie on Thursday taking place on Oct. 31. This Fight Night card, which does not yet have a location, will be the first in UFC history to take place on Halloween night. Two fights have been added to the event already, with the first taking place at the light heavyweight division as Dustin Jacoby (12-5) takes on Justin Ledet (9-3, 1 NC). Jacoby has since confirmed the matchup on his Instagram.

The former Glory kickboxer Jacoby will making his return to the UFC after an eight-year absence. Appearing in August on the first 2020 episode of Dana White's Contender Series, Jacoby headlined and captured a one-sided decision victory over Ty Flores to earn a contract. Since leaving the UFC in 2012, Jacoby went on to compete under the World Series of Fighting and Bellator MMA, although he lost three combined matches with those two organizations.

Ledet began his time in the UFC with a trio of heavyweight wins over Chase Sherman, Mark Godbeer and Azunna Anyanwu. Following a “Beatdown of the Year” defeat to Aleksandar Rakic in 2018 upon dropping back down to light heavyweight, Ledet has yet to win again. The defeats after the Rakic bout include a 15-second spinning backfist knockout at the hands of Johnny Walker, and a decision loss to Aleksa Camur.

The other match added to the event is a heavyweight affair between Greg Hardy (6-2, 1 NC) and Maurice Greene (9-4), which was also reported first by MMA Junkie on Friday. Greene subsequently posted about the match on his Instagram page to confirm it.

Hardy’s controversial UFC tenure includes a disqualification loss in his debut when he hit Allen Crowder with an illegal knee, as well as a no contest after his decision win against Ben Sosoli that was overturned after it was found Hardy used an illegal inhaler. Hardy’s last performance in May was a successful decision in his favor, where he became the first fighter to beat Yorgan De Castro. Five of Hardy’s six career wins have come by knockout.

A contestant on the 28th season of “The Ultimate Fighter,” Greene too introduced himself to much of the MMA community in problematic fashion, in the form of drunken antics and confrontations throughout the season of the reality show. When “TUF” concluded, Green proved himself worthy of a place on the roster, by submitting Michel Batista, taking a split verdict on the scorecards over Jeff Hughes in a rematch and knocking out Junior Albini. Twin stoppage losses to Sergei Pavlovich and Alexey Oleynik sent him back to the drawing board, but he has since returned to the win column in June by submitting Gian Villante with an unorthodox arm-triangle choke off his back.