Photo by Jeff Bottari/Zuffa LLC/Zuffa LLC via Getty Images
Anthony Smith is coming home in a headlining spot against Glover Teixeira.
Anthony Smith is coming home. The light heavyweight contender and Nebraska native will step into the Octagon as one half of the UFC Lincoln main event. The other half of the headliner? Glover Teixeira.
The UFC officially announced the fight recently:
Nebraska, we’re back
@LionheartASmith returns vs @GloverTeixeira in the main event of #UFCLincoln! pic.twitter.com/bJZnyPRSUy
— UFC (@ufc) January 24, 2020
Smith (32-14, 9-4 UFC) is coming off arguably the biggest win of his career, a fourth-round submission victory over Alexander Gustafsson last June. He currently sits as the number three contender at 205 in the official UFC rankings.
Teixeira (30-7, 13-5 UFC) has picked up three wins in a row, with the latest coming via close split decision over Nikita Krylov. He occupies the nine spot in the light heavyweight rankings.
In addition to the headliner, the promotion also added four more bouts to the April 25th card. The most relevant of the bunch is probably a women’s flyweight battle between Antonina Shevchenko (8-1, 2-1 UFC) and Cynthia Calvillo (8-1-1, 5-1-1 UFC). This will be Calvillo’s first 125-pound fight in the UFC following two weight misses in her last three straweight bouts.
Also added is a bout between the returning Evan Dunham, who will meet Michael Johnson. Johnson is going back to 155 pounds after an uneven run at featherweight, while Dunham is doing what almost all fighters do at some point and deciding to come out of retirement.
The other two bouts now on the card are below:
Andrew Sanchez vs Zak Cummings
Anthony Rocco Martin vs David Zawada