????: USA Today
The UFC’s first pay-per-view of 2020 has garnered a lot of buzz with the addition of Conor McGregor’s return against Donald Cerrone. With a lot of extra eyeballs that will surely come with a McGregor fight, two bantamweights will have the opportunity to make a statement to kick off the new year.
A fight between Brian Kelleher (19-10) and Contender Series contract winner Ode Osbourne (8-2) is being targeted for UFC 246, multiple sources have confirmed to The Scrap. The event takes place Jan. 18 at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas.
The 33-year-old Kelleher will look to get back to his winning ways next month against a debuting 135-pound prospect. “Boom” has dropped back-to-back fights to John Lineker and Montel Jackson as he looks to get back to form in his first fight in over a year. Kelleher was scheduled to face Mitch Gagnon at UFC on ESPN+ 9 in May before being forced to withdraw with an injury. The Long Island MMA product is 3-3 in the UFC, which includes wins over Renan Barao and Iuri Alcantara.
Osbourne made his presence felt to the MMA world, and to UFC president Dana White, with his contract winning submission win on the Contender Series in July. “The Jamaican Sensation” submitted Armando Villareal in the first round and was one of the highlights of the third season of the show. The 27-year-old Osbourne has won his last four fights, finishing all of them in the first round as he prepares to make his anticipated Octagon debut.
With the addition of the bantamweight bout between Kelleher and Osbourne, here is how the UFC 246 card currently shapes up.
UFC 246 fight card:
- Welterweight – 170lbs: Conor McGregor vs. Donald Cerrone
- Flyweight – 125lbs: Maycee Barber vs. Roxanne Modafferi
- Lightweight – 155lbs: Drew Dober vs. Nasrat Haqparast
- Featherweight – 145lbs: Grant Dawson vs. Chas Skelly
- Heavyweight – 207-265lbs: Maurice Greene vs. Aleksei Oleinik
- Strawweight – 115lbs: Claudia Gadelha vs. Alexa Grasso
- Featherweight: Andre Fili vs. Sodiq Yusuff
- Lightweight: Carlos Diego Ferreira vs. Anthony Pettis
- Flyweight: Askar Askarov vs. Tim Elliott
- Bantamweight – 135lbs: Holly Holm vs. Raquel Pennington
- Bantamweight: Brian Kelleher vs. Ode Osbourne
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The Scrap’s Mike Heck is an interviewer and features writer for FloCombat, The Body Lock, MyMMANews and BJPenn.com. Happily married and a proud father, Mike also hosts a weekly podcast called Between the Links on the Loudmouth MMA Podcast Network and YouTube page. Follow all of Mike’s exclusive video interviews at Mike Heck MMA on YouTube and follow him on Twitter (@MikeHeck_JR).
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