Two big bantamweight bouts in the works for UFC 245

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The absolutely stacked UFC 245 year-end card just got even better with the additions of two surprising bantamweight matchups.

UFC 245 takes place on Dec. 14 live from the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada. As the last pay-per-view of the year for the UFC, they intend to go out with a bang as evidenced by their triple title headliner bouts.

However, all the preceding action to the fights with gold on the line is quite amazing in its own right.

On Wednesday, two massive fights for the 135-pound bantamweight division were revealed as in the works for the event.

Firstly, as reported by ESPN’s Brett Okamoto, “The California Kid” Urijah Faber (35-10) will be making his sophomore appearance since unretiring in July. He’ll get the chance to catapult directly into title contention if he can get past the dangerous Russian, Petr “No Mercy” Yan (13-1).

For Yan, he’s already arguably a fight at the most away from a title shot as he rides an eight-fight winning streak with five of those coming inside the Octagon. His most recent win came at UFC 238 over Jimmie Rivera via unanimous decision.

When the 40-year old Faber returned in July after a short-lived two and a half year retirement, he would dispatch of rising prospect, Ricky Simon, by TKO in just 46 seconds.

The other bout being added to the card also comes as a fairly big surprise.

Earlier this week, former UFC featherweight champion, Jose Aldo (28-5), shared his seriousness in regards to a move down to the 135-pound weight class. Although he had the champion, Henry Cejudo, in his sights that one will have to wait. But it shouldn’t be too far away if he can defeat his welcoming party.

MMA Junkie has reported that a matchup between Aldo and the recent title challenger at bantamweight, Marlon Moraes (22-6-1), is also in the works for the year-end showcase.

The former World Series of Fighting king in Moraes would suffer his second career UFC defeat to the aforementioned Cejudo during his last time out. The bout headlined UFC 238 in June.

As for the rest of the loaded UFC 245, it currently stands as follows.

Welterweight: (C )Kamaru Usman vs. Colby Covington
Featherweight: (C) Max Holloway vs. Alexander Volkanovski
Bantamweight: (C)Amanda Nunes vs. Germaine de Randamie
Welterweight: Matt Brown vs. Ben Saunders
Flyweight: Jessica Eye vs. Viviane Araújo
Flyweight: Brandon Moreno vs. Kai Kara-France
Middleweight: Punahele Soriano vs. Oskar Piechota
Welterweight: Robbie Lawler vs. TBD
Bantamweight: Irene Aldana vs. Ketlen Vieira
Bantamweight: Marlon Moraes vs. Jose Aldo
Bantamweight: Petr Yan vs. Urijah Faber

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The Scrap’s Drake Riggs is an MMA writer and YouTuber based out of Brush Prairie, Washington who specializes in feature pieces, the women’s fight scene, lists, news coverage, and rankings. Riggs has been a passionate MMA fan since 2009 and has written for various news sources. You can follow him on Twitter (@Dre_Kriggs).

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