Getty Cody Garbrandt reacts to his victory over Dominick Cruz in their UFC bantamweight championship bout during the UFC 207 event on December 30, 2016 in Las Vegas, Nevada.
Former UFC bantamweight champion Cody “No Love” Garbrandt will attempt to become a two-division champion as he will be taking on flyweight champ Deiveson “God of War” Figueiredo at UFC 255 on November 21, according to ESPN’s Brett Okamoto. UFC president Dana White confirmed the matchup to Okamoto, as well as a women’s flyweight title fight between Valentina “Bullet” Shevchenko and challenger Jennifer Maia.
No Love will attempt to do what very few fighters in the UFC have done before by winning a second divisional belt, and he is faced with a tough task. Figueiredo won the vacant flyweight strap on July 19 when he dominated Joseph Benavidez en route to a first-round submission. The God of War has an impressive professional MMA record of 19-1 and is currently riding a three-fight win streak.
In 20 fights, Figueiredo has only gone to a decision three times, winning nine bouts by KO or TKO and seven by submission.
After Okamoto broke the news, the ESPN journalist tweeted: “Deiveson Figueiredo’s manager Wallid Ismail told me via text this morning, Figueiredo wants everyone to know he’s promising a knock out against Cody Garbrandt. ‘Tell everybody, we’re knocking him out.'”
No Love took to Twitter to respond to Figueiredo’s claim, tweeting: “He better hope he does! Lol I’m going to break his a** in there! #WorldClassCardio.”
Garbrandt Has Been Eyeing Flyweight for a While
After taking more than a year hiatus from the Octagon, Garbrandt returned to action on June 6 during UFC 250 when he landed a knockout-of-the-year candidate, defeating Raphael Assuncao and snapping his three-fight losing streak.
UFC 255 will be Garbrandt’s first trip to flyweight, but he has been teasing the move for a while. In an interview with MMA Fighting, No Love said, “I’ve actually been vocal about going to 125 for quite some time now. We spoke about it in the past before the Assuncao fight and I feel like it’s great. I’m able to do it now, early still in my career. I just turned 29.”
Garbrandt has a professional MMA record of 12-3, with all three of his losses coming within his last four bouts. No Love has only gone the distance twice in 15 fights, winning 10 by KO or TKO.
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No Loves Believes This is the Perfect Time for Him to Move Down to the Flyweight Division
At 29 years old, Garbrandt believes the time is now to challenge for a belt in a lower weight class. During the interview with MMA Fighting, “I feel like it’s a time in my life and my career where it’s very pivotal for me to make this transition into flyweight and bantamweight. I don’t think a lot of the flyweight guys could come up to bantamweight and compete at the elite level that I am, so I’m very blessed I’m able to do that.”
The former bantamweight champion gave props to the God of War, saying, “Great guy. I think that he’s a tough, tough competitor, I just think that I’m way more skillful than him and excited for the challenge at task.”
No Love is not finished with bantamweight, telling the outlet that he wanted to move back to his former division after winning the flyweight belt. He said, “I’m able to go to 125, challenge and win that title there, and then go back up to 135 pounds and compete with the best of them there.”
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