Dana White Announces Full Lineups for May 13, 16 Fight Night Events in Jacksonville

The next two Ultimate Fighting Championship events following UFC 249 have now been made official, per UFC President Dana White.

On Friday, White appeared on ESPN, where he confirmed the full listing of events for May 13 and 16. Both cards will take place at the VyStar Veterans Memorial Arena in Jacksonville, Florida, and they each will be broadcast on ESPN while closed to the public. During his interview, he also explained that the intention is to place Tyron Woodley as the headliner of the upcoming May 23 event. That card does not have any fights booked on it, nor does it have a location set, and White admitted that the promotion wanted to get through this surge of events before looking at the ones to come.

UFC Fight Night 171 is a rare card airing on a Wednesday, and it will be headlined on May 13 by a light heavyweight battle between former title challengers Anthony Smith (33-14) and Glover Teixeira (30-7). The two were initially booked to headline the Fight Night card on April 25 in Lincoln, Nebraska, but the event was postponed due to the coronavirus.

Smith bounced back from a championship defeat to Jon Jones in March 2019 with a fourth-round submission of Alexander Gustafsson three months later. “Lionheart” has finished his opponent in each of his last even wins, while sporting a career finish rate of 91 percent. Teixeira is riding a three-fight win streak, his longest since 2016, which includes tapouts of Karl Roberson and Ion Cutelaba along with a split verdict over Nikita Krylov.

UFC Fight Night 172 will go down the following Saturday, and the main event of that card is a heavyweight clash between Alistair Overeem (45-18, 1 NC) and Walt Harris (13-7, 1 NC). The two have been scheduled to face one another multiple times, most recently atop the promotion's offering on April 11 in Portland, Oregon. That too was scuttled due to the coronavirus.

Overeem’s last appearance came in the main event of UFC on ESPN 7, where he faced Jairzinho Rozenstruik. The former Strikeforce king was up on the scorecards going into the fifth round, but an unexpected right hand from Rozenstruik put Overeem out with four seconds left in the bout. “The Demolition Man” has stopped his opponent in 89 percent of his fights, including five of his last six adversaries in victory. Each of his last seven defeats have come by knockout. Taking him on will be Harris, who has not tasted defeat since 2017. “The Big Ticket” has scored three knockouts over Daniel Spitz, Sergey Spivak and Alexey Oleynik, while accompanying those wins with no-contest against Andrei Arlovski along the way. Harris sports a 100 percent knockout rate.

Also of note, White responded to a claim that UFC 249 competitor Donald Cerrone wished to drive out to Jacksonville and compete at all three events in a short span. The UFC head threw cold water on that idea, saying, “I love that the kid thinks like that, but…especially with what’s going on right now we’re trying to be as safe as we possibly can, having somebody fight three times in the span of six or seven days, absolutely, positively does not make sense.“

UFC Fight Night 171 on May 13
Anthony Smith vs. Glover Teixeira - light heavyweight
Ben Rothwell vs. Ovince St. Preux - heavyweight
Alexander Hernandez vs. Drew Dober - lightweight
Ray Borg vs. Ricky Simon - bantamweight
Karl Roberson vs. Marvin Vettori - middleweight
Andrei Arlovski vs. Philipe Lins - heavyweight
Michael Johnson vs. Thiago Moises - lightweight
Sijara Eubanks vs. Sarah Moras - women’s bantamweight
Hunter Azure vs. Brian Kelleher - featherweight

UFC Fight Night 172 on May 16
Alistair Overeem vs. Walt Harris - heavyweight
Claudia Gadelha vs. Angela Hill - women’s strawweight
Edson Barboza vs. Dan Ige - featherweight
Eryk Anders vs. Krzysztof Jotko - middleweight
Marlon Vera vs. Yadong Song - featherweight
Kevin Holland vs. Anthony Hernandez - middleweight
Giga Chikadze vs. Mike Davis - featherweight
Cortney Casey vs. Mara Romero Borella - women’s flyweight
Darren Elkins vs. Nate Landwehr - featherweight
Don'Tale Mayes vs. Rodrigo Nascimento Ferreira - heavyweight