The Ultimate Fighting Championship is making sure that its next foray on the ABC network will be one to remember.
On Thursday, a trio of matchups were confirmed or updated for UFC on ABC 3, with one fighter getting signed as a replacement while two additional fights were set on the lineup. The July 16 event in Elmont, N.Y., initially had a preliminary strawweight contest between Jessica Penne (14-5) and Brianna Fortino, but the latter had to withdraw from the contest. Per MMA Junkie on Thursday morning, replacing Fortino is ex-Invicta Fighting Championships champ Emily Ducote, who successfully defended her title in that organization earlier in May. Ducote confirmed her signing and match on her Instagram Stories on Thursday.
Penne returned to the organization after a lengthy layoff due to USADA issues in 2021, and she met the surging Lupita Godinez and won a split decision to end a three-fight skid dating back to 2015. Since then, Penne fought once more, tapping out Karolina Kowalkiewicz in the first round with an armbar. The former Invicta atomweight queen evened her UFC record to .500 with that win, as she has only made six appearances since debuting off the 20th season of “The Ultimate Fighter” in 2014.
In 2021, Ducote scored a frontrunner for “Knockout of the Year” when she lamped Danielle Taylor with a punch and a head kick to claim the vacant Invicta strawweight strap. The aforementioned May title fight for Ducote went her way when she forced the doctors to intervene at the end of the second round against Alesha Zappitella. In that bout, “Gordinha” became the first fighter to finish the durable Zappitella. A longtime staple of the Bellator MMA flyweight division before leaving the organization in 2018, she vied for the inaugural Bellator flyweight championship in 2017, and succumbed to a fifth-round submission to Ilima-Lei Macfarlane.
When announcing that this event’s main card would air on ABC on Wednesday, the promotion confirmed several matchups on the card that had already been reported. One that first came to light prior to the UFC’s announcement, courtesy of MMA Island, was a flyweight tilt between Matt Schnell (15-6) and Su Mudaerji (16-4). Schnell will come into the pairing looking for his first win in 18 months, while Mudaerji rides in on a three-fight win streak across 125 and 135 pounds.
Finally, a sure-fire featherweight brawl was set for this fight card, one that will likely serve on the main card between Shane Burgos (13-3) and Charles Jourdain (13-4-1). This fight booking first broke from Eurosport.NL on Thursday, and Burgos celebrated this bout moments after its announcement. The bout was once targeted for UFC 276 at the beginning of July, but it has subsequently shifted to July 16.
Burgos ended the first skid of his career – a decision loss to Josh Emmett in 2020 and a knockout defeat to Edson Barboza in May 2021 – by going three hard-fought rounds with Billy Quarantillo at UFC 268. On most other nights, Burgos-Quarantillo would have likely earned “Fight of the Night” honors, but it had to contend with Justin Gaethje and Michael Chandler’s “Fight of the Year” winning battle. Since joining the roster in 2016, Burgos has beaten the likes of Cub Swanson, Makwan Amirkhani and Charles Rosa as he claimed a place in the ultra-competitive featherweight division’s rankings.
“Air” Jourdain has seen a successful 2022 campaign thus far, where he became just the second fighter to finish Lando Vannata, doing so in April by guillotine choke. Winner of his last two, the Canadian has had his fair share of ups and downs since signing with the UFC in 2019, as this two-fight win streak is his first streak of any kind as a UFC fighter. Losses to Andre Fili and Julian Erosa, interspersed by wins over Doo Ho Choi and Marcelo Rojo, along with a split draw with Joshua Culibao, have seen little momentum build for the fighter who celebrates a stellar finish rate of 92%.
UFC on ABC 3 goes down at the UBS Arena in Elmont, N.Y., which is located on Long Island. The fight card on July 16 will be buoyed by a featherweight scrap between Brian Ortega and Yair Rodriguez with major divisional implications at stake. The remainder of the bout order has not yet been set, but other fights featured highly on the event include a potential flyweight title eliminator between Askar Askarov and Alex Perez, a bantamweight encounter between Ricky Simon and Jack Shore as well as a strawweight pairing when Michelle Waterson takes on Amanda Lemos.
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