Ex-UFC Champ to Return From 3-Year Layoff at UFC Fight Night
More than three years removed from her last appearance in the Octagon, the first women’s featherweight champion in UFC history is set to return to action later this year.
The UFC 157 main event between Ronda Rousey and Liz Carmouche famously kicked off a new era for the promotion with the introduction of a women’s bantamweight division, and in the following years new women’s weight classes were added as the UFC began signing more female talent.
The promotion formally introduced the women’s featherweight division with the main event for UFC 208, which saw Germaine de Randamie claim the inaugural belt when she defeated former bantamweight titleholder Holly Holm via unanimous decision.
De Randamie (left) was the first women's featherweight champion in UFC history.
(Anthony Geathers/Getty Images)
“The Iron Lady” was eventually stripped of her title when she decided to return to bantamweight and hasn’t competed since a submission win over Julianna Peña in 2020, but now Laerte Viana reports that de Randamie will return to the Octagon to face Norma Dumont at a UFC Fight Night on April 6.
The matchup between the two women is expected to take place at bantamweight, where Dumont is currently ranked at #12 despite the fact that the majority of her UFC bouts have taken place in the featherweight division.
Dumont has struggled to cut down to bantamweight during her UFC career.
(Mark J. Rebilas/USA TODAY Sports)
De Randamie’s brief reign as a UFC champion may have ended disappointingly, but her only two UFC losses came at the hands of former two-division champion Amanda Nunes and she also holds victories over two former titleholders in Holm and Peña.
The UFC Fight Night event on April 6 is scheduled to take place at the UFC Apex facility in Las Vegas, and the card will be headlined by top middleweight contenders Marvin Vettori and Brendan Allen.
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