Irene Aldana, Yana Kunitskaya to square off at UFC 264 in Las Vegas

Before Dustin Poirier and Conor McGregor meet inside the cage for the third time, two of the UFC’s top women’s bantamweight contenders will collide on the same card.

Irene Aldana and Yana Kunitskaya are set to collide July 10 at UFC 264. The pay-per-view event, which takes place at T-Mobile Arena, will mark the first time since UFC 248 in March 2020 where the promotion has held a full capacity show in Las Vegas.

A person with knowledge of the matchup confirmed the booking to MMA Junkie on Tuesday but asked to remain anonymous as the promotion has yet to make an official announcement. Mexican news outlet Milenio was the first to report the news.

To close out 2019, Aldana (12-6 MMA, 5-4 UFC) won back-to-back fights as she ascended up the divisional ladder. She first earned a unanimous decision over Vanessa Melo, before she knocked Ketlen Vieira out inside Round 1. In her first UFC headliner against Holly Holm, however, Aldana had her two-fight winning streak snapped by unanimous decision.

Kuntiskaya (14-5 MMA, 4-2 UFC) enters UFC 264 on a two-fight winning streak. On the heels of a loss to Aspen Ladd, Kunitskaya defeated Julija Stoliarenko by unanimous decision. She followed that up with another unanimous decision in her most recent outing in February, when she defeated Ketlen Vieira.

With the addition, the UFC 264 lineup includes:

• Dustin Poirier vs. Conor McGregor
• Gilbert Burns vs. Stephen Thompson
• Jessica Eye vs. Jennifer Maia
• Ryan Hall vs. Ilia Topuria
• Omari Akhmedov vs. Brad Tavares
• Jerome Rivera vs. Zhalgas Zhumagulov
• Greg Hardy vs. Tai Tuivasa
• Dricus Du Plessis vs. Trevin Giles
• Sean O’Malley vs. Louis Smolka
• Irene Aldana vs. Yana Kunitskaya