Mario Bautista, Ricky Simon Set to Trade Leather at UFC Event on Jan. 13

The Ultimate Fighting Championship brass should be ready to hand out a post-fight bonus check after this upcoming scrap.

On Sunday, management team Iridium Sports Agency announced that Mario Bautista (13-2) and Ricky Simon (20-4) will meet in the first UFC card of 2024 on Jan. 13. The bantamweights will square off at the UFC Apex in Las Vegas. The bout has subsequently confirmed by Bautista, who posted about the matchup on his Instagram, while opponent Simon remarked that he had signed a multi-fight deal with the promotion on his own Instagram page.

MMA Lab product Bautista is riding a five fight win streak that includes three submissions over Brian Kelleher, Benito Lopez and Guido Cannetti. Of note, his reverse triangle armbar of Lopez in 2022 served as just the second of its type in company history. Most recently, the 30-year-old Arizonan picked up a hard-fought decision win over Da’Mon Blackshear at UFC 292 in August.

Simon will be hunting for his first win since July 2022 when he battles Bautista. The Washington native succumbed to strikes against Yadong Song in his first UFC headliner in August. Before that fifth-round defeat, Simon had chained together five straight victories with names including Raphael Assuncao, Jack Shore and the aforementioned Kelleher.

The unnamed UFC Fight Night event on Jan. 13 will go down inside of the UFC Apex in Las Vegas, and no headliner has yet been announced. Other bouts on the billing thus far include a bantamweight contest pitting Norma Dumont against Yana Santos, a heavyweight clash of Andrei Arlovski vs. Waldo Cortes-Acosta and 135-pound battle between Marcus McGhee and Gaston Bolanos.