Check out Bloody Elbow’s pre-fight coverage for the Saturday, March 11th UFC Fight Night event in Fortaleza, Brazil, headlined by middleweights Vitor Belfort and Kelvin Gastelum.
The UFC’s first Brazilian event of 2017 is an FS1 Fight Night in Fortaleza, on Saturday, March 11th. In the main event, Vitor Belfort takes on Kelvin Gastelum in a five-round middleweight matchup. The co-main pits light heavyweight legend Mauricio Rua against Long Island’s Gian Villante. Lightweights Edson Barboza and Beneil Dariush — this should be a five-round fight and it sadly isn’t — are also featured on this card. Kicking off the main card is a rematch between welterweights Alex Oliveira and Tim Means. Their UFC 207 encounter ended in a no contest due to a Means illegal knee.
Highlighting the prelims is an intriguing lightweight battle between Kevin Lee and Francisco Trinaldo. Unfortunately, Kyle Bochniak vs. Godofredo Pepey has been scrapped, as Pepey had to withdraw due to injury. The card will move on with 12 fights instead of 13, and here’s the bout order:
Main Card (10 PM ET, FS1)
Vitor Belfort vs. Kelvin Gastelum
Mauricio Rua vs. Gian Villante
Edson Barboza vs. Beneil Dariush
Ray Borg vs. Jussier Formiga
Bethe Correia vs. Marion Reneau
Tim Means vs. Alex Oliveira
Preliminary Card (8 PM ET, FS1)
Kevin Lee vs. Francisco Trinaldo
Sergio Moraes vs. Davi Ramos
Joe Soto vs. Rani Yahya
Josh Burkman vs. Michel Prazeres
Preliminary Card (7 PM ET, Fight Pass)
Rony Jason vs. Jeremy Kennedy
Paulo Henrique Costa vs. Garreth McLellan