White: Aldana Gets Nunes With Win Over Holm

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Irene Aldana was forced to withdraw from her women’s Bantamweight bout against Holly Holm — which was scheduled to headline the UFC Vegas 5 event on Aug. 1, 2020, in Las Vegas, Nevada – after testing positive for COVID-19.

A few weeks later, the bout was rebooked to headline an upcoming “Fight Night” event on Oct. 3, which will likely go down on “Fight Island” in Abu Dhabi. And while Holm is under the notion that she will get another crack at the title with a win, Aldana will most certainly get it if she proves victorious.

That’s according to Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) President Dana White, who told C. Contreras Legaspi of LA Aflicion after the “Contender Series” this past week that Aldana will get a title shot against current women’s champ-champ Amanda Nunes with a victory next month.

Aldana is currently on a two-fight win streak thanks to consecutive wins over previously-undefeated Ketlen Vieira – whom she knocked out in the very first round – and Vanessa Melo. The Mexican-born fighter who hails from Culiacan, Mexico has won five of her last six bouts which is good enough to put her at No. 6 on the official UFC rankings.

Holm (No. 2), meanwhile, is coming off a unanimous decision win over Raquel Pennington at UFC 246 and is in search of back-to-back wins for the first time since 2015 when she became the promotion’s 135-pound champion by upsetting Ronda Rousey at UFC 193.

Nunes, on the other hand, is on tap to defend her Featherweight title against Megan Anderson at the upcoming UFC 256 pay-per-view (PPV) event on Dec. 12, 2020.

Also on the card, 135-pound contenders Germaine de Randamie and Julianna Pena will trade leather against one another, while longtime MMA veteran Andrei Arlovski takes on Tanner Boser in Heavyweight action.