Three-time Octagon veteran Lone’er Kavanagh will be thrown into
the fire at UFC Mexico City. | Getty/UFC
It appears that Brandon
Moreno will remain in the
UFC Mexico City main event after all.
Moreno was originally slated to face Asu
Almabayev on Feb. 28 in Mexico City before his opponent
withdrew from the flyweight bout due to an arm injury. As a result,
the former 125-pound king will now face Lone’er
Kavanagh in the new UFC Fight Night 268 headliner at Arena CDMX
in Mexico City. The
UFC announced the new pairing on Wednesday.
There is a significant gap in experience between the two
combatants. Moreno is a two-time UFC flyweight champion with 19
Octagon appearances to his credit, while Kavanagh is 2-1 during his
brief tenure within the Las Vegas-based promotion.
Moreno had a two-bout winning streak snapped in his last outing,
when he suffered a secondp-round technical knockout loss to
Tatsuro
Taira at UFC 325 this past December. Prior to that the two-time
flyweight king had earned consecutive five-round verdicts over
Amir
Albazi and Steve
Erceg.
Kavanagh, meanwhile, earned a UFC contract with a first-round
knockout of An Tuan Ho
on
Dana White’s Contender Series in August 2024. He kicked off his
Octagon tenure with unanimous decision triumphs over Jose Ochoa
and Felipe
dos Santos before suffering a second-round KO defeat against
Charles
Johnson at
UFC Fight Night 269 this past August.
UFC Fight Night 269 Update
Kavanagh was originally expected to face Bruno Silva
in a flyweight contest at
UFC Fight Night 269 on March 14 at the UFC Apex in Las Vegas.
With the 26-year-old Brit shifting to Mexico City, former opponent
Johnson will step in and face Silva at the event. Both fighters
confirmed the booking following an initial report from Laerte Viana.