A former bantamweight champion returns to his old weight class, and an intriguing matchup of veteran featherweights, have been added to UFC 214.
Renan Barao will meet Aljamain Sterling and Ricardo Lamas squares off with Chan Sung Jung on July 29 at Anaheim’s Honda Center. The UFC reported the Barao-Sterling fight Wednesday on Fox Sports 1; Lamas-Jung had previously been reported by BJPenn.com.
For Barao (34-4), the matchup with Sterling represents his return to the division over which ruled from 2012-14. Barao lost the his title to T.J. Dillashaw at UFC 173. He dropped out of a planned rematch with Dillashaw at UFC 177 due to a weight cut gone bad, then lost to Dillashaw via fourth-round finish in July 2015. His last two fights came at featherweight, where he lost to Jeremy Stephens and won a decision last September over Phillipe Nover.
Sterling (13-2) is looking to build on a his decision win over Augusto Mendes at UFC on FOX 24. That snapped a two-fight losing streak for the Long Island, N.Y. native.
Jung vs. Lamas was a fight that was originally scheduled to take place at UFC 162. That got changed when “The Korean Zombie” got put into a UFC 163 title shot against featherweight champ Jose Aldo, which he lost in the fourth round.
Jung (14-4) returned from the three-year South Korean military commitment and defeated Dennis Bermudez by knockout in February, giving him four wins in his past five fights. Lamas (17-5), for his part, has won two of his past three, most recently earning a Performance of the Night bonus for his second-round submission over Charles Oliveira in Mexico City on Nov. 5.
Four other fights were also announced on the show Wednesday. Josh Burkman vs. Drew Dober (lightweight), Kailin Curran vs. Alexandra Albu (strawweight), Eric Shelton vs. Jarred Brooks (flyweight), and Dmitrii Smoliakov vs. Adam Wieczorek (heavyweight) were also added to the card.