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Amanda Lemos beat Mackenzie Dern in February | Photo by Hans Gutknecht/MediaNews Group/Los Angeles Daily News via Getty Images Top-ranked strawweights Amanda Lemos and Virna Jandiroba collide on July 20 at a UFC Fight Night event at the UFC APEX, multiple people with knowledge of the booking confirmed to MMA Fighting following a report from Igor Melotto. UFC has yet to announce the main event for the Fight Night card. Lemos moved to No. 5 on the MMA Fighting Global Rankings following a decision win over Mackenzie Dern this past February, rebounding from a unanimous decision defeat to 115-pound champion Zhang Weili in August 2023. Jandiroba, who sits at No. 7 among MMA Fighting’s strawweight ranks, enters the cage hoping to earn a shot at the belt. The jiu-jitsu ace is currently riding a three-fight winning streak over Loopy Godinez, Marina Rodriguez, and Angela Hill.

Photo by Chris Unger/Zuffa LLC via Getty Images UFC 303’s fight card continues to expand as the promotion counts down to its long-awaited return of Conor McGregor. A previously scheduled heavyweight matchup between former UFC champion Andrei Arlovski and Martin Buday has officially been shifted to June 29 for UFC 303, which takes place at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas. Arlovski vs. Buday was originally booked for the promotion’s UFC Fight Night event on June 15 at the UFC APEX. Marcel Dorff first reported the news. Arlovski (34-23, 2 NC) is one of the longest tenured fighters in UFC history. The 45-year-old heavyweight makes his 42nd walk to the octagon at UFC 303 in hopes of halting a three-fight losing skid that has seen him stumble to the likes of Marcos Rogerio de Lima, Don’Tale Mayes, and Waldo Cortes-Acosta. Prior to that, Arlovski won four straight UFC bouts from April 2021 to April 2022, and six of his previous seven. Buday (13-2) also looks to climb back into the win column after suffering his first UFC loss in December with a second-round stoppage at the hands of Shamil Gaziev. A 32-year-old native of Slovakia, Buday won four consecutive bouts to kick off his UFC run prior to that setback, beating Chris Barnett, Lukasz Brzeski, Jake Collier, and Josh Parisian. UFC 303 is headlined by McGregor’s return from a three-year layoff in a welterweight bout against fellow The Ultimate Fighter 31 coach Michael Chandler. An updated UFC 303 fight card can be seen below. Conor McGregor vs. Michael Chandler Jamahal Hill vs. Khalil Rountree Jr. Mayra Bueno Silva vs. Macy Chiasson Cub Swanson vs. Andre Fili Andrei Arlovski vs. Martin Buday Ricky Simon vs. Vinicius Oliveira Joe Pyfer vs. Marc-Andre Barriault Payton Talbott vs. Yanis Ghemmouri Michelle Waterson-Gomez vs. Gillian Robertson Rei Tsuruya vs. Carlos Hernandez

John Fury | Photo by Justin Setterfield/Getty Images John Fury has no regrets about his incident this week. This Saturday, Fury’s son Tyson Fury faces Oleksandr Usyk in a highly anticipated boxing match that will crown the first undisputed heavyweight champion in almost 25 years. It’s a massive event, and fight week got off to a heated start on Monday when the elder Fury headbutted a member of Usyk’s team during a media event. A day later, Fury has no regrets about what happened. “It’s the fight game,” Fury told iFL TV. “Emotions are running high. At the end of the day, I was sat there, minding my own business, and all I could hear was, ‘Usyk! Usyk! Usyk!’ And I’m going to stand up for my son. At the end of the day, he’s my son, he’s the best in the world, and I want people to respect him and give him the credit he deserves as the champion. He’s the best in the world. “When I was in amongst them, all I could hear was badness. So at the end of the day, some little idiot came forward — I don’t know who he was — in me space, he got what he got, and that’s the end of it. It happens every other week for me, that.” For better or worse, that does appear to be the case. The Fury patriarch has become infamous for his antics during his sons’ rivalries. In the past few years, Fury challenged Jake Paul to a fight when his son Tommy Fury was feuding with Paul, and he also challenged Mike Tyson when Tyson trained Francis Ngannou for his boxing match against Tyson in 2023. And it sounds like John Fury has no intention of reigning that part of himself in any time soon. “People are in positions. Tyson and Usyk can say what they want to each other,” Fury said. “They’re the ones that are going to fight. But I don’t think anybody else has got the authority to call anybody else [anything]. Because if one of my team was to insult Usyk, they’d be sacked, because they haven’t got the authority to do that. So at the end of the day, leave the fighting men to fight. “At the end of the day, I’ve done what I’ve done. I have no complaints about anything. I am what I am. I’m going to defend my name with everything I’ve got. You see me walk amongst every man on me own. I don’t care if it was a rugby field, when it comes to a fight, I don’t care if I get kicked to death. Win, lose, or draw, I’ll have me say. That’s just the way I am.” Tyson Fury faces Oleksandr Usyk this Saturday at Kingdom Arena in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.

Tracy Cortez | Photo by Chris Unger/Zuffa LLC via Getty Images Tracy Cortez looks to extend a double digit streak this summer when she fights Miranda Maverick. MMA Fighting’s Mike Heck confirmed with sources that Cortez (11-1) is set to fight Maverick (13-5) at a July 20 UFC event scheduled to take place at UFC APEX in Las Vegas. Maverick was first to announce the news via her social media. View this post on Instagram A post shared by Miranda “Fear The” MAVERICK (@fearthemaverick) Cortez is yet to lose since making her UFC debut in November 2019, going 5-0 inside the octagon. Her win streak extends back to 2017 and she has won 11 straight fights overall. In Cortez’s most recent outing, she defeated Jasmine Jasudavicius via unanimous decision. Inactivity has slowed Cortez’s rise up the ladder, as she competed just once in 2023, 2022, 2021, and 2020. Still just 26 years old, Maverick has gone 6-3 in her UFC career while flirting with a top-10 ranking. She has won four of her past five fights, including back-to-back wins over Andrea Lee and Priscila Cachoeira in her previous two outings.

Photo by Chris Unger/Zuffa LLC via Getty Images On what was arguably the biggest night of his career up to that point, Ian Machado Garry prepared to walk to the cage to vie for a title without a single coach in his corner. That fight in Cage Warriors back in 2021 ultimately served as Garry’s graduation before joining the UFC roster, but an ugly split with his now former coaches at Team KF left Garry without anyone to corner him for his five-round matchup against Jack Grant. Thankfully, Paul Hughes was already attending the card to help out one of his teammates also scheduled to compete at Cage Warriors. Hughes was already friendly with Garry before that weekend, but when the future UFC welterweight contender needed some backup, the prospect who just recently signed with PFL happily accepted the job. “I think he just needed somebody to actually stand in his corner,” Hughes recounted recently on The MMA Hour. “I think he would have just done it by himself if he could have, fair play to him. I think he needed somebody in his corner for whatever reason that was. “I was in town, my teammate Joe McColgan was fighting for a world title that night or the night before, so he was just like, ‘Any chance you can step in?’ I was like, ‘Yeah, absolutely. Of course.’ I wouldn’t leave someone hanging like that.” While they knew each other, Hughes hadn’t spent much time around Garry as a fighter, but he didn’t blink when asked about cornering him that night. The title fight actually ended up going for 25 minutes, so Hughes didn’t escape any duties as he helped between rounds before Garry ultimately earned a unanimous decision win. Despite no real prior relationship as coach and fighter or even fighter and teammate, Hughes said there was no way he would’ve let Garry walk out there by himself. In fact, Hughes revealed that’s not the only time he’s stepped in to corner a fighter at the last minute — and that instance included somebody he had never even met before. “It’s the least I could do,” Hughes said of cornering Garry that night. “It really is the least I could do. When I was in Amsterdam cornering [one of my teammates], some guy showed up with no corner, he was like ‘I need a cornerman.’ I was like, ‘Yeah, I’ll do it.’ “I had no idea [who he was]. He needed a corner. A fellow fighter needed some help and I’m happy to help. The least I could do.” As for Garry, Hughes maintains a friendship with him to this day, and it was actually his advice that led Hughes to begin training with his current team at Kill Cliff MMA in Florida. The gym, which serves as the home base for fighters such as Michael Chandler, Gilbert Burns, Jason Jackson, and Shavkat Rakhmonov, was exactly what Hughes needed — and he always remembers Garry for making the suggestion to train there. “Ian Garry was training there for a while, obviously I’m friends with him,” Hughes said. “So he was like, ‘This is the spot, you’ve got to get out here.’ That gave me more incentive to go out and try it out.” Hughes plans on training at Kill Cliff as he prepares for his upcoming debut at Bellator Dublin, which is scheduled for June 22.