Ultimate Fighting Championship’s first card of 2025 saw some changes made a little less than a week before the event.
Jacob Smith is set to make his Octagon debut on Saturday against Preston Parsons at UFC Vegas 101 (also known as UFC Fight Night 249) at the UFC Apex in Las Vegas. Smith replaces Andreas Gustafsson, who withdrew from the event for undisclosed reasons. MMAjunkie.com was first to report the new booking.
Meanwhile, Joe Solecki will replace Yanar Ashmuth and face Nurlo Aliyev in a lightweight bout on the same card. Aliyev and Solecki confirmed the reservation via social media. UFC Vegas 101 is headlined by a strawweight rematch between Amanda Rivas and Mackenzie Dern.
Smith, a former wrestler at Oklahoma State University, began his professional career with nine straight wins, seven of which came by KO or TKO. He earned a UFC contract by stopping Christian Savoie in the second round on Dana White’s Contender Series.
Parsons is 2-3 in his Octagon career, losing a unanimous decision to Orban Elliott at UFC 304 in July of this year.
Solecki, also a Contender Series alum, withdrew from back-to-back UFC bouts against Grant Dawson and Drukkar Klose. Prior to that, the New Jersey native had won five of his first six Octagon appearances.
Aliyev will be competing for the first time since February 2023, when he defeated Rafael Alves by majority decision in his promotional debut at UFC Fight Night 220.
