Photo by Jeff Bottari/Zuffa LLC/Zuffa LLC via Getty Images
A heavyweight clash between Stefan Struve and Tai Tuivasa has been added to UFC 254.
Heavyweights Stefan Struve and Tai Tuivasa will meet at UFC 254. The fight was confirmed by UFC officials on Thursday morning.
Struve (29-12) was last seen in 2019 at UFC on ESPN: Overeem vs. Rozenstruik, where he lost by way of technical knockout to Ben Rothwell in the second round. The loss to Rothwell set Struve back as he had just rebounded from a three-fight losing streak with a “Performance of the Night” submission win over Marcos Rogerio de Lima at UFC Fight Night: Blachowicz vs. Santos last February.
Struve enters the Tuivasa fight with a 1-4 record in his last five outings.
Tuivasa (9-3) has also been away from the Octagon since 2019 with his most recent appearance resulting in a loss to Sergey Spivak by submission at UFC 243. This was the third straight loss for Tuivasa, who dropped a decision to Blagoy Ivanov at UFC 238 and was knocked out by Junior dos Santos at UFC Fight Night: dos Santos vs. Tuivasa.
Tuivasa was poised to come back in June at UFC 251 against Jarjis Dando in what would have been the UFC’s return to Perth, Australia, but the card was relocated due to the coronavirus pandemic and the fight was scrapped altogether. Shortly after, Tuivasa revealed he was released from the promotion on social media, thus finishing his tenure with a 3-3 record.
He earned wins over names like Rashad Coulter, Cyril Asker and Andrei Arlovski.
UFC 254 now sits at 12 fights with the addition of Struve and Tuivasa. The card will be topped by a lightweight title unification fight between current champion Khabib Nurmagomedov and interim champion Justin Gaethje.