Casey O’Neill to Return at UFC 296 in December Against Ariane Lipski

A place in the Ultimate Fighting Championship’s top 15 at flyweight looms for the victor.

On Thursday, Ag. Fight first broke the news that Casey O'Neill (9-1) will be stepping into the Octagon against Ariane Lipski (16-8) on Dec. 16. The two flyweights will tangle likely on the preliminary portion of UFC 296, which will be held at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas. This 125-pound affair has been confirmed by both women via their Instagram Stories pages.

Born in Scotland and trained in Australia, O’Neill suffered her first career defeat in March. Her nine-fight win streak, which included four triumphs inside the Octagon, fell by the wayside courtesy of Jennifer Maia. On her way up the 125-pound ladder, O’Neill rapidly ascended when she dispatched Shana Dobson, Lara Procopio and Antonina Shevchenko in the span of less than eight months. A lone 2022 effort against Roxanne Modafferi also went her way by split decision, and a torn ACL a few months later kept her out of action for the remainder of the year. “King” was booked against Viviane Araujo in September, but an undisclosed injury requiring surgery again delayed her return to the cage after the Maia loss.

Sporting an even .500 record in the UFC thus far, Lipski has had her ups and downs since joining the roster in 2019. The Brazilian suffered a pair of losses against Joanne Wood and Molly McCann to introduce herself to international audiences, which shattered much of the goodwill she had gained prevailing under the KSW banner. Since then, she has bounced back and forth in the win/loss columns, and her two-fight win streak this year matches her UFC best. In March, Lipski topped J.J. Aldrich on the scorecards, and she follows that with a split decision victory against Melissa Gatto in July.

The UFC’s year-end pay-per-view event of UFC 296 will go down at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas on Dec. 16. Topping the two-title bout card will be a welterweight championship grudge match between Leon Edwards and Colby Covington. The co-headliner will see Alexandre Pantoja defend his flyweight strap in a rematch with Brandon Royval. Other main card matchups include a welterweight clash between Shavkat Rakhmonov and Stephen Thompson, a lightweight tilt pitting Tony Ferguson against Paddy Pimblett and an all-action 170-pound scrap of Ian Garry vs. Vicente Luque.