UFC Fight Night 216 - Cannonier vs. Strickland --- UFC 283 - Teixeira vs. Hill
UFC Fight Night 217: Strickland vs. Imavov (also known as UFC Vegas 67) is an upcoming mixed martial arts event uproduced by the Ultimate Fighting Championship that will take place on January 14, 2023, at the UFC Apex facility in Enterprise, Nevada, part of the Las Vegas Metropolitan Area, United States.
Fight card
Main card (ESPN+)
Light Heavyweight Sean Strickland vs. Nassourdine Imavov
Featherweight Dan Ige vs. Damon Jackson
Middleweight Punahele Soriano vs. Roman Kopylov
Women's Bantamweight Ketlen Vieira vs. Raquel Pennington
Bantamweight Umar Nurmagomedov vs. Raoni Barcelos
Preliminary card (ESPN+)
Middleweight Abdul Razak Alhassan vs. Claudio Ribeiro
Lightweight Mateusz Rębecki vs. Nick Fiore
Bantamweight Javid Basharat vs. Mateus Mendonça
Flyweight Allan Nascimento vs. Carlos Hernandez
Featherweight Daniel Argueta vs. Isaac Dulgarian
Flyweight Jimmy Flick vs. Charles Johnson
Women's Flyweight Priscila Cachoeira vs. Sijara Eubanks
Background
A middleweight bout between former interim UFC Middleweight Championship challenger and The Ultimate Fighter: Team Jones vs. Team Sonnen middleweight winner Kelvin Gastelum and Nassourdine Imavov was scheduled to headline the event. The pair was previously scheduled to meet at UFC 273, but Imavov was forced to withdraw due to visa issues. However, the week of the event, Gastelum withdrew due to a mouth injury and was replaced by Sean Strickland, with the bout now expected to take place at light heavyweight
A heavyweight bout between Jailton Almeida and Shamil Abdurakhimov was originally announced for this date. However the UFC issued a correction a short time later announcing the fight was set for UFC 283 the following week.
A flyweight bout between Jeff Molina and Jimmy Flick was expected to take place at the event. However, Molina withdrew from the event due to undisclosed reason and was replaced by Charles Johnson. A few weeks later it was announced that Molina was under suspension by the Nevada Athletic Commission as he has been linked to an investigation around the Nov. 5 fight between Darrick Minner and Shayilan Nuerdanbieke.
Welterweights Geoff Neal and Shavkat Rakhmonov were expected to meet at this event. However on December 29, Neal pulled out due to undisclosed injury and the bout was rescheduled for UFC 285.
Omar Morales was expected to face Mateusz Rębecki in a lightweight bout. However, Morales withdrew from the bout for undisclosed reasons and was replaced by Nick Fiore.
