The hole left in the UFC Fight Night 103 card in Phoenix, AZ due to an injury to Bryan Caraway has been plugged. A key flyweight tilt between Sergio Pettis and John Moraga has now been promoted to the main card, the UFC confirmed today. The bout was originally scheduled to headline the Fox Sports 1 Preliminary portion of the event.
In the wake of Caraway’s injury, opponent Jimmie Rivera was offered replacement opponents John Dodson and Marlon Vera, and eventually settled on Vera. However, he apparently changed his mind on the short notice replacement, and withdrew from the event, claiming he feared looking like a bully. With Rivera, who had a huge career boost with a win over Urijah Faber at UFC 203, off the event, the UFC were down a main card fight. Enter Pettis vs. Moraga.
Pettis (14-2), the younger brother of former lightweight champion Anthony Pettis, enters the bout on a two-fight win streak, and is 5-2 in the UFC overall. He meets former title challenger Moraga (16–5) as the latter is coming off a two-fight losing skid, with decision losses to Joseph Benavidez and Matheus Nicolau.
UFC Fight Night 103: Penn vs. Rodrigeuz now breaks down as follows:
MAIN CARD (Fox Sports 1)
Yair Rodriguez vs. B.J. Penn
Marcin Held vs. Joe Lauzon
Court McGee vs. Ben Saunders
John Moraga vs. Sergio Pettis
PRELIMINARY CARD (Fox Sports 1)
Augusto Mendes vs. Frankie Saenz
Aleksei Oleinik vs. Viktor Pesta
Tony Martin vs. Alex White
Drakkar Klose vs. Devin Powell
PRELIMINARY CARD (UFC Fight Pass)
Nina Ansaroff vs. Jocelyn Jones-Lybarger
Walt Harris vs. Chase Sherman
Joachim Christensen vs. Bojan Mihajlovic
Cyril Asker vs. Dmitrii Smoliakov
