With a featherweight title rematch heavily rumored for later in 2025, Ilia Topuria and Alexander Volkanovski will indirectly face off Feb. 8 at UFC 312.
One fighter’s loss is another’s gain. After Cody Haddon suffered a broken foot that forced him out of a fight on the Sydney card vs. Aleksandre Topuria, the UFC enlisted newcomer Colby Thicknesse to fill the void.
News of the change was first reported recently by Alvaro Colmenero and confirmed by the teams and the promotion Wednesday on social media.
Topuria (5-1 MMA, 0-0 UFC) is the brother of the UFC featherweight champion, Ilia. UFC 312 will mark his promotional debut just six fights into his professional career. He’s never gone the distance in his career, with three TKOs and two submissions across five wins.
Thicknesse (7-0 MMA, 0-0 UFC) is a training partner of Volkanovski, who won the HEX Fight Series bantamweight title in November. Four of his seven pro wins have come inside the distance.
With the change, the UFC 312 lineup now includes:
- Champion Dricus Du Plessis vs. Sean Strickland – for middleweight title
- Champion Zhang Weili vs. Tatiana Suarez – for women’s strawweight title
- Justin Tafa vs. Tallison Teixeira
- Rodolfo Bellato vs. Jimmy Crute
- Jake Matthews vs. Francisco Prado
- Anshul Jubli vs. Quillan Salkilld
- Viacheslav Borshchev vs. Tom Nolan
- Jack Jenkins vs. Gabriel Santos
- Bruna Brasil vs. Cong Wang
- Kody Steele vs. Rong Zhu
- Kevin Jousset vs. Jonathan Micallef
- Hyun Sung Park vs. Nyamjargal Tumendemberel
- Colby Thicknesse vs. Aleksandre Topuria
For more on the card, visit MMA Junkie’s event hub for UFC 312.
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