A flyweight championship bout between the defending Alexandre Pantoja and No. 4 contender Kai Kara-France will serve as the co-main event at UFC 317 this summer for the organization’s annual International Fight Week.
UFC president Dana White confirmed the 125-pound title fight Tuesday on social media while announcing a handful of other upcoming matchups.
The event is scheduled for June 28 at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, headlined by a vacant lightweight championship matchup between Ilia Topuria and Charles Oliveira.
Pantoja has won seven in a row since 2020 and defended his title most recently in December with a submission of Kai Asakura at UFC 310.
The 35-year-old champ from Brazil has also earned title defences over Brandon Royval and Steve Erceg since beating Brandon Moreno in July 2023 to earn the gold belt.
Kara-France returned from a 14-month layoff at UFC 305 last year when he got a first-round technical knockout win over Erceg, who had been coming off a narrow decision loss to Pantoja in their UFC 301 title matchup earlier in the year.
The 32-year-old challenger from New Zealand also holds notable past wins over Askar Askarov, who’s the most recent person to defeat Pantoja, as well as former UFC bantamweight champion Cody Garbrandt.
This 125-pound contest is a rematch of a 2016 exhibition bout when the two were competitors on “The Ultimate Fighter: Tournament of Champions” and met in a quarterfinal matchup. Pantoja won a two-round unanimous decision over Kara-France in that fight 8.5 years ago.
Another flyweight matchup between current No. 1-ranked contender Royval and No. 6 contender Manel Kape was also added to the UFC 317 lineup with the winner of that matchup presumably in line for a future title shot.
Pantoja holds a 29-5 professional MMA record and is 13-3 at the UFC level with wins over six of the top nine current flyweight contenders, including multiple wins over both Moreno and Royval.
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