UFC is returning to the Garden State with a pair of incredible championship bouts. Men’s bantamweight champion Merab Dvalishvili will defend his crown against former titleholder Sean O’Malley in a title rematch while women’s bantamweight champion Julianna Pena will take on former PFL champion Kayla Harrison, UFC CEO Dana White announced on Tuesday. The event will take place on June 7 at the Prudential Center in New, Jersey.
UFC teased a major announcement earlier in the day, leading to speculation as to what it could be with recent comments suggesting it could be a heavyweight unification between champion Jon Jones and interim titleholder Tom Aspinall, or the potential superfight matchup between lightweight king Islam Makhachev and former featherweight champ Ilia Topuria. Instead, it was the announcement of the bantamweight rematch after Dvalishvili and O’Malley battled it out over five rounds at Noche UFC last September.
Dvalishvili, 34, enters on a 12-fight win streak and fresh off arguably the best win of his career against Umar Nurmagomedov, where he was a betting underdog to the unheralded challenger. O’Malley, 30, has not competed since the loss to Dvalishvili.
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In the other title fight, Pena earned the women’s bantamweight title for the second time in her career last October when she took a split decision against Raquel Pennington. The fight ended over two years of inactivity for Pena, 35, after she was crushed in her rematch with Amanda Nunes in 2022.
Harrison, 34, has made waves since her UFC debut last April with a submission win over Holly Holm at UFC 300 and a decision over Ketlen Vieira in October. The Olympic gold medalist won the 2019 and 2021 PFL women’s lightweight tournament crowns before a shocking upset to Larissa Pacheco in November 2022. She fought just once more for the promotion against Aspen Ladd in 2023 — a decision win — before making the jump to UFC.
