UFC 239 Fight Card: Jones vs. Santos main card announced

The UFC has announced the five fights that will feature on the UFC 239 main card.

UFC 239 is scheduled to take place at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada, on Saturday, July 6. The finalized fight card was displayed during Saturday’s broadcast of UFC Greenville.

The event will be headlined by a Light Heavyweight Championship fight between Jon Jones and Thiago Santos.

Jon Jones captured the title in December last year by defeating Alexander Gustafsson by TKO in the third round. He then defended the title successfully against Anthony Smith at UFC 235 in March.

Since moving up to the light heavyweight division in September last year, Thiago Santos has already recorded impressive wins over Eryk Anders, Jimi Manuwa, and Jan Blachowicz. After the fall of other top contenders in the division, Santos’ three-fight winning streak was more than enough to earn him a shot at Jones and the title.

In the co-main event, women’s bantamweight champion Amanda Nunes will be defending her title against Holly Holm.

Amanda Nunes returns to the Octagon for the first time since taking the women’s featherweight title from Cris Cyborg in December 2018. Since winning the bantamweight title from Miesha Tate at UFC 200 in July 2016, Nunes has defended the belt from Ronda Rousey, Valentina Shevchenko, and Raquel Pennington.

Despite just one win in the bantamweight division in the past three years, Holly Holm will be the one to challenge Nunes at UFC 239. After defeating Bethe Correia at UFC Fight Night 111 in Singapore two years ago, Holm then returned to the featherweight division where she lost a title fight against Cris Cyborg before earning a unanimous decision win over Megan Anderson.

One of the other most anticipated bouts of the event is a welterweight showdown between #4 ranked Jorge Masvidal and #5 ranked Ben Askren. That fight will feature just before the two title fights.

The first of the two light heavyweight bouts on the main card will see Jan Blachowicz welcome former UFC middleweight champion Luke Rockhold to the division.

Opening the main card will be an exciting welterweight battle between Diego Sanchez and Michael Chiesa.

Although the card ranks as one of the strongest of the year, it could have been even better if not for Francis Ngannou vs. Junior dos Santos being moved to UFC on ESPN 3. Sean O’Malley was also scheduled to fight Marlon Vera at UFC 239, but a failed USADA test led to the Nevada State Athletic Commission disallowing him from competing at the event.

See the full UFC 239 fight card below.