UFC Atlantic City sees main event swap

New year, same UFC main event problems.

Really, if we’re being fair the world’s largest MMA promotion has already had a much better start to the year than they did in 2023 when it comes to keeping fight cards together, but the good times couldn’t last forever. Amid numerous reports of struggles to find a headlining fight for UFC 300 a smaller Fight Night main event looks to be the first major cancelled booking of the year.

Vicente Luque gets new UFC Atlantic City opponent, moves to co-main

The UFC had been hoping to book a top flight welterweight bout between action talent Vicente Luque and rising potential contender Sean Brady. Unfortunately, despite announcing the contest to the public, it later turned out that contracts had never actually been signed. Brady was sidelined by injury and couldn’t recover in time to make the booking.

Fortunately for fans, it looks like the UFC found a fun replacement. With Brady out, MMA Junkie reports that Luque will take on human highlight machine Joaquin Buckley. The 29-year-old St. Louis native first shot to prominence back in 2020, with an all time great KO over recently crowned PFL champion Impa Kasanganay. Consistency has been a little hard to find in the time since, but Buckley dropped down to welterweight last year and picked up a head kick KO over Andre Fialho for his trouble. Most recently, Buckley defeated longtime UFC veteran Alex Morono at UFC Fight Night: Dawson vs. Green.

For his part, the 32-year-old Luque will enter the bout off a victory in August of last year, over former lightweight champion Rafael dos Anjos. That win broke a two-fight losing skid for the Brazilian, dropping a unanimous decision to Belal Muhammad, followed by a KO loss to Geoff Neal. Shortly after the Neal loss, Luque was diagnosed with a brain bleed, keeping him sidelined for a year before he was cleared to fight again.

Erin Blanchfield vs. Manon Fiorot elevated to main event

Despite Luque staying on the card, it seems the UFC didn’t feel his new dance partner merited retaining the main event slot. Instead, that position will go to a women’s flyweight top contender fight between Erin Blanchfield and Manon Fiorot. It’s a move that the New Jersey native has been campaigning for over the last several weeks.

“I don’t know yet,” Blanchfield told MMA Junkie back in December when asked about the possibility of headlining in Atlantic City. “I’m pushing, I want it to be a main event. I’d love to fight five rounds. I feel like that fits my style really well, and prepping myself for a title fight, I think going five rounds would be super beneficial. So I don’t know for sure, but I’m going to push for five rounds.”

Both Blanchfield and Fiorot have looked like obvious contenders over the course of their runs in the Octagon. However, both women are currently coming off less than spectacular showings against elite opposition—with ‘Cold Blooded’ grinding out a decision over Taila Santos last time out, and Manon Fiorot gutting out a hard fight against former strawweight champion Rose Namajunas.

Outside of the flyweight bout, the Atlantic City fight card may also play home to the last fight of Chris Weidman’s career. The former middleweight champion has struggled badly with injuries in recent years, and largely failed to find the form that saw him take the belt from Anderson Silva. Weidman last competed at UFC 292 in August of 2023, losing to Brad Tavares via unanimous decision. He’s expected to take on power punching former M-1 champion Bruno Silva on March 30th.

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Zane Simon

Zane Simon is a senior editor, writer, and podcaster for Bloody Elbow. He has worked with the website since 2013, taking on a wide variety of roles. A lifelong combat sports fan, Zane has trained off & on in both boxing and Muay Thai. He currently hosts the long-running MMA Vivisection podcast, which he took over from Nate Wilcox & Dallas Winston in 2015, as well as the 6th Round podcast, started in 2014. Zane is also responsible for developing and maintaining the ‘List of current UFC fighters’ on Bloody Elbow, a resource he originally developed for Wikipedia in 2010.

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