According to reports from MMA Fighting UFC 274 recently added a pair of new bouts. That outlet reports that the promotion has finalized Brandon Royval vs. Matt Schnell and Journey Newson vs. Fernie Garcia for that card.
Royval is currently ranked joint-fourth, with Alex Perez, in the UFC’s flyweight division below only Alexandre Pantoja, Askar Askarov and former champ Brandon Moreno. Schnell is ranked ninth.
Royval and Schnell are both coming off fights with Rogerio Bontorin. Royval picked up an exhilarating split decision win over Bontorin at UFC Vegas 46 in January. Schnell lost his fight with Bontorin, by unanimous decision, at UFC 262 back in May 2021.
Schnell has seen a bout with Alex Perez cancelled four times over the last nine months. Most recently, the pair were due to meet at this month’s UFC 271. But Schnell nixed the match-up after Perez missed weight.
Schnell currently holds a 5-4 UFC record (15-6 overall). Among his Octagon wins are victories over Naoki Inoue, Louis Smolka and Jordan Espinosa.
Prior to his fight with Bontorin, Royval was on a two-fight losing skid with defeats to Pantoja and Moreno. Before those losses Royval scored submission wins over Kai Kara-France and Tim Elliott. His UFC record is 3-2 (13-6 overall).
Journey Newson (9-3 1 NC) and Fernie Garcia (10-1) are both on the hunt for their first UFC wins. Newson debuted for the company in 2019 and has lost twice (to Ricardo Ramos and Randy Costa) and fought to a no contest with Domingo Pilarte. The fight with Pilarte was initially scored a TKO win for Newson, but that was overturned due to a positive test for marijuana (which has since been removed from Nevada’s banned substance list).
After a successful tenure in LFA, Garcia scored a win over Joshua Weems on the Contender series last year.
UFC 274 is slated for May 11 with a location TBA. The card also features UFC lightweight champion Charles Oliveira vs. Justin Gaethje and UFC light heavyweight champion Glover Teixeira vs. Jiri Prochazka.
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