Yorgan De Castro vs. Justin Tafa Elevated to UFC 243 Pay-Per-View Card

VICIOUS @DecastroYorgan ends it with a leg kick #DWCS pic.twitter.com/jyLj8i0em8

— ESPN MMA (@espnmma) June 19, 2019

Octagon newcomers Yorgan De Castro and Justin Tafa will kick off the UFC 243 pay-per-view draw on Saturday night.

The heavyweight bout was elevated from preliminary status after Holly Holm withdrew from a rematch with Raquel Pennington late last week due to a partially torn hamstring. The promotion elected not to find a replacement opponent for Pennington on short notice. The new bout ordered was confirmed on ESPN.com’s event page.

UFC 243 takes place at Marvel Stadium in Melbourne on Saturday and is headlined by a middleweight title unification bout between Robert Whittaker and Israel Adesanya. The main card airs on pay-per-view via ESPN+ at 10 p.m. ET/7 p.m. PT. Prelims begin on ESPN+ at 6:45 p.m. ET/3:45 p.m. PT before transitioning to ESPN2 at 8 p.m. ET/5 p.m. PT.

De Castro earned a UFC contract with a first-round technical knockout of Sanford Alton Meeks on Dana White’s Contender Series this past June. The 32-year-old CES MMA veteran is 5-0 as a professional, with four of those triumphs coming by knockout or technical knockout.

A native of Australia, Tafa has kicked off his professional career with three consecutive TKO victories under the Xtreme Fighting Championship banner.