The Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) will air its first card on ESPN on Saturday, July 19.
The UFC which spent 7 years with Fox has put together a tremendous card to announce its arrival to ESPN viewers.
UFC Fight Night 143 will take place at the Barclays Center in New York and will be headlined by a flyweight title fight between T.J Dillashaw vs. Henry Cejudo.
While the card is stacked with a number of great fights, MMA fans are keen on seeing two of the hottest female fighters in the UFC battle it out.
Paige VanZant (PVZ) is popular both inside and outside the Octagon and has close to 2 million followers on Instagram. The former Dancing With The Stars contestant has been out of the Octagon for over a year due to an injury from her last fight and is eager to resume her UFC career.
Rachel Ostovich has close to half a million followers on Instagram and was in the news recently due to spousal abuse. Her husband battered her to such an extent that there were talks of cancelling the fight with PVZ but Ostovich has pushed past both the physical and emotional pain to give the fans what they wanted to see.
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PVZ has a 7-4 record and is the betting favorite against Ostovich who has a 4-4 record. Both fighters have lost their last fight with PVZ losing to Jessica Rose-Clark in Jan 2018 and Ostovich losing her last fight to Montana De La Rosa in July 2018.
Apart from the Main Event title fight and PVZ vs. Ostovich, the Main Card has four more fights scheduled. The co-main event will see former NFL player Greg Hardy make his UFC debut against Allen Crowder. Hardy is undefeated in his MMA career with a 3-0 record and is the betting favorite.
Gregor Gillespie who is undefeated in the UFC will take on Yancy Medeiros in what should be a very interesting stylistic matchup as Medeiros is a striker and Gillespie has great wrestling credentials.
Glover Teixeira was scheduled to fight Ian Cutelaba in the light heavyweight division but Cutelaba had to withdraw due to injury. Teixeira will now face Karl Roberson who has a 7-1 record. The final fight on the Main Card is Joseph Benavidez against Dustin Ortiz.
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