Cejudo-Moraes for Bantamweight Title Headlines UFC 238

The awaited clash between UFC Flyweight Champion Henry Cejudo and No. 1-ranked bantamweight contender Marlon Moraes will take place on June 8, as the UFC has confirmed that the fight will serve as the main event of UFC 238.

Cejudo and former bantamweight champion T.J. Dillashaw collided for Cejudo’s 125-pound title back in January at UFC Brooklyn, with Cejudo winning via a quick, yet controversial stoppage early in the first round. The plan was for the two to run it back, this time with Cejudo stepping up in weight to challenge for Dillashaw’s title.

However, things changed drastically when it was reported a few weeks ago that Dillashaw had failed a drug test and would be suspended until January 2020. Dillashaw vacated the UFC Bantamweight Title in response.

Cejudo will attempt to join a select club of UFC fighters to have held titles in the promotion in two different weight classes, and a club of even fewer to hold two UFC championships simultaneously. He will be the fourth or fifth depending on if featherweight champ Max Holloway is successful in his interim lightweight title fight next weekend at UFC 236.

Cejudo is on a four-fight win streak, which also featured him upsetting Demetrious Johnson back in August at UFC 227 to become just the second UFC flyweight champion in history, ending Johnson’s six-year reign and record-setting consecutive title defense streak. Moraes is also on his own four-fight win streak, last scoring a first-round submission of Raphael Assuncao back in February at UFC Fortaleza. That win guaranteed Moraes, a former WSOF bantamweight champion, a future crack at the 135-pound championship.

Gold will also be on the line in the UFC 238 co-main event, as Valentina Shevchenko makes her first defense of the UFC Women’s Flyweight Championship, taking on Jessica Eye.

Since moving to flyweight at the start of 2018, not long after the women’s division’s establishment in the UFC, Shevchenko dominated Priscila Cachoeira in February 2018 to earn a shot at the title and inaugural champion Nicco Montano. But after Montano dropped out of the fight and was stripped of the title, Shevchenko fought former women’s strawweight champion Joanna Jedrzejczyk at UFC 231, winning the title with a unanimous decision.

Meanwhile, Eye struggled to compete in the UFC, fighting in the bantamweight division, a division deemed too big for her. However, since the establishment of women’s flyweight in the UFC, Eye has regained success. Eye won all three bouts she competed in during 2018, also last competing at UFC 231, where she defeated Katlyn Chookagian by decision.

UFC 238 takes place on June 8 at the United Center in Chicago, Illinois.