This week’s UFC on ESPN+ 32 event has a late addition fight for the card.
[autotag]Joaquin Buckley[/autotag] (10-2 MMA, 0-0 UFC), who picked up a second-round TKO win over Jackie Gosh at LFA 87 this past Friday, did enough in that fight to earn a short-notice call from the UFC. A matchup with [autotag]Kevin Holland[/autotag] (17-5 MMA, 4-2 UFC) at middleweight is set for the event, multiple people with knowledge of the booking told MMA Junkie. The people spoke on the condition of anonymity because the UFC has not yet made the booking official.
UFC on ESPN+ 32 takes place Saturday at the UFC Apex in Las Vegas. The event streams on ESPN+.
Holland was scheduled to take on Trevin Giles this past Saturday at UFC on ESPN+ 31. But when Giles fained ahead of the fight, he had to be removed from the card, leaving Holland without an opponent. The UFC wanted to get him matched up again quickly and wasted little time.
The 27-year-old Holland got back in the win column in May with a 39-second TKO of Anthony Hernandez. It put him back on the plus side after a submission loss to Brendan Allen this past October snapped a three-fight winning streak.
Buckley took out Gosh with a brutal stoppage in South Dakota in a bout that streamed on UFC Fight Pass. It was his second straight LFA win after coming to the promotion after a five-fight run in Bellator that saw him go 3-2. One of those two losses came by TKO to Gosh in November 2016, so the win over him was a matter of revenge nearly four years later.
With the addition, the UFC on ESPN+ 32 card now includes:
MAIN CARD (ESPN+, 9 p.m. ET)
- Derrick Lewis vs. Aleksei Oleinik
- Omari Akhmedov vs. Chris Weidman
- Maki Pitolo vs. Darren Stewart
- Yana Kunitskaya vs. Julija Stoliarenko
- Beneil Dariush vs. Scott Holtzman
PRELIMINARY CARD (ESPN+, 6 p.m. ET)
- Tim Means vs. Laureano Staropoli
- Nasrat Haqparast vs. Alex Munoz
- Andrew Sanchez vs. Wellington Turman
- Justin Jaynes vs. Gavin Tucker
- Peter Barrett vs. Youssef Zalal
- Ali Alqaisi vs. Irwin Riverac
- Joaquin Buckley vs. Kevin Holland