This Saturday’s UFC Fight Night card has been hit with several changes, including a new fighter stepping in to the main event.
The UFC ends a three-week road trip this weekend when it returns home to Las Vegas following UFC Abu Dhabi, which saw Reinier de Ridder move closer towards a middleweight title shot when he defeated former divisional titleholder Robert Whittaker in the night’s main event.
UFC Vegas 108 will be the first of back-to-back cards at the UFC Apex before the promotion heads to Chicago, IL for UFC 319, and just before fight week kicked off news broke that Amir Albazi had unfortunately withdrawn from his main event booking with Tatsuro Taira.
There was some speculation that the UFC might try to put a whole new fight together to headline UFC Vegas 108, but on Monday of fight week the promotion announced that Hyun Sung Park will step in for a huge short-notice opportunity against Taira.
A veteran of Road to UFC, Park is a perfect 10-0 in his professional MMA career and has finished nine-straight opponents since going the distance in his pro debut back in 2018.
The 29-year-old most recently submitted Carlos Hernandez in May and was scheduled to meet former flyweight title challenger Steve Erceg later this year, but now the South Korean gets a massive chance to vault into the flyweight Top 10 when he meets the #6-ranked Taira.
Taira enters UFC Vegas 108 after suffering his first loss via split decision against Brandon Royval last October, and in addition to the new matchup with Park the UFC also confirmed several other changes for UFC Vegas 108.
Rising flyweight talent André Lima was scheduled to put his undefeated record on the line against Felipe Bunes but has been replaced by Rafael Estevam, and a featherweight bout between Francis Marshall and Austin Bashi has also been scrapped following Marshall’s withdrawal due to injury,
It was previously reported that Yousri Belgaroui was stepping in to replace Torrez Finney for a matchup with Azamat Bekoev, but due to visa issues for Belgaroui the UFC confirmed that the fight with Bekoev has now been moved to UFC Vancouver in October.
• Main Event: Tatsuro Taira vs. Hyun Sung Park
• Co-Main Event: Mateusz Rebecki vs. Chris duncan
• Elves Brener vs. Esteban Ribovics
• Karol Rosa vs. Nora Cornolle
• Neil Magny vs. Elizeu dos Santos
• Danny Silva vs. Kevin Vallejos
• Rinya Nakamura vs. Nathan Fletcher
• Rodolfo Viera vs. Tresean Gore
• Nick Klein vs. Andrey Pulyaev
• Rafael Estevam vs. Felipe Bunes
• Piera Rodriguez vs. Ketlen Souza
• Undefeated MMA champion dominates UFC veteran, gets belt from Islam Makhachev
• Referee sprints to save unconscious MMA fighter after savage KO
• Ilia Topuria hopes UFC gives him Conor McGregor treatment after Canelo-Crawford fight
• Israel Adesanya gives bold pick for Islam Makhachev vs. Jack Della Maddalena
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