Alexandre Pantoja opened as the +130 underdog against Brandon Moreno when they met for the second time under the UFC banner. That came as a bit of a surprise at the time, consider “The Cannibal” submitted “Assassin Baby” on The Ultimate Fighter (TUF) 24. Bettors savvy enough to grab that line made a few bucks after the Brazilian captured a convincing unanimous decision victory over Moreno at UFC Fight Night 129: “Maia vs. Usman” back in May 2018.
UFC released their full fight as part of its UFC 290 “Free Fight” videos, embedded above.
A lot has changed between then and now. Moreno is the defending flyweight champion and Pantoja is ranked No. 2 in the world at 125 pounds. They’ll collide for a third time in the upcoming UFC 290 pay-per-view (PPV) co-main event, locked and loaded for TONIGHT (Sat., July 8, 2023) at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada. The winner may be in line to face No. 4-ranked Brandon Royval, who weighed in for UFC 290 as the championship backup fighter.
Remember that MMAmania.com will deliver LIVE round-by-round, blow-by-blow coverage of the entire UFC 290 fight card RIGHT HERE, starting with the early ESPN+ “Prelims” matches online, which are scheduled to begin at 6 p.m. ET, then the remaining undercard bouts on ABC/ESPN/ESPN+ at 8 p.m. ET, before the PPV main card start time at 10 p.m. ET on ESPN+ PPV.
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