Canadian fans going to miss out on UFC lightweight championship rematch

The UFC is reportedly preparing to return to Canada with a pay-per-view event in January. Several fights were already announced, but the event had yet to add the standard pair of championship fights that we come to expect from these line-ups. That was until Friday when Diego Ribas of AG Fight reported that one of them would include Mayra Bueno Silva vs. Raquel Pennington to crown a new bantamweight champion after Amanda Nunes‘ retirement.

The other one? According to Ariel Helwani, that was Islam Makhachev vs. Charles Oliveira II, the highly anticipated rematch we missed out on this past October. The rematch was originally scheduled for UFC 294, but ‘Do Bronx‘ was forced to withdraw after suffering a gruesome gash during his final sparring session in Brazil. Makhachev accepted a short-notice fight against fellow UFC champion Alexander Volkanovski, who he ultimately defeated via first-round finish. And with that, all eyes were on Makhachev vs. Oliveira II again.