UFC 224: Women's Bantamweight Championship

UFC 224: Nunes vs. Pennington is an upcoming mixed martial arts event produced by the Ultimate Fighting Championshipthat will be held on May 12, 2018, at the Jeunesse Arena in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

The UFC was initially targeting a UFC Women's Featherweight Championship bout between the current champion Cris Cyborg and the current UFC Women's Bantamweight Champion Amanda Nunes to take place at this event and potentially serve as the headliner. However, Cyborg was instead scheduled for a title defense at UFC 222 in March and the plans were scrapped. In turn, it was announced on February 23 that Raquel Pennington would instead face Nunes for the bantamweight title.

Volkan Oezdemir was briefly linked to a bout with former light heavyweight title challenger Glover Teixeira at the event. However, Oezdemir was pulled from that pairing in favor of a matchup with former UFC Light Heavyweight ChampionMaurício Rua the following week at UFC Fight Night: Usman vs. Ponzinibbio.

Please note---fightcard subject to change.