Arlovski Vs. Harris Added To December’s UFC 232

The UFC’s big end of year card in Las Vegas just got another injection of star power with the addition of former heavyweight champ Andrei “The Pitbull” Arlovski (16-11 UFC, 27-17 MMA). He’ll face off against Walt “The Big Ticket” Harris, whose UFC career has been a back and forth of wins and losses adding up to a 5-6 record (11-7 MMA).

Arlovski was once considered one of the top heavyweights in the world, but a brutal run of fights has seen him go 2-7 since 2016. Worth mentioning, though, is the level of competition he was facing: a murderer’s row of Stipe Miocic, Alistair Overeem, Josh Barnett, and Francis Ngannou made up four of those losses. Things didn’t get much better against lesser names. Uninspired wins over Junior Albini and Stefan Struve were followed by equally lackadaisical losses to Tai Tuivasa and Shamil Abdurakhimov, leaving many to wonder how much Arlovski has left to give in the cage.

While Harris has struggled to consistently win, he has racked up a solid collection of violent knockouts in the UFC. A late replacement loss to Fabricio Werdum and oddball DQ loss to Mark Godbeer in 2017 could be masking the picture of a heavyweight on the cusp of putting it all together. Most recently, Walt beat Daniel Spitz in June of 2018 via second round KO.

UFC 232 goes down December 29th from the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada. Jon Jones and Alexander Gustafsson headline the event in a scrap for the soon-to-be vacated light heavyweight title, and a women’s superfight between featherweight champ Cris Cyborg and bantamweight champ Amanda Nunes takes the co-main slot.