UFC 284: Rodriguez vs Emmett To Fight for Interim Featherweight Title
Yair Rodriguez and Josh Emmett will clash for an interim UFC Featherweight Championship at UFC 284 PPV, UFC has announced.
The interim title is introduced due to current Featherweight Champion Alexander Volkanovski getting a foray into the lightweight division. He is scheduled to challenge Lightweight Champion Islam Makhachev on the same night in a bid to become a double champion.
That fight was also confirmed as UFC 284’s main event earlier on Saturday. After this, the commentary team announced before the main event of UFC 281 that an interim title in being introduced for the featherweight division with #2 ranked Yair Rodriguez and #5 ranked Josh Emmett fighting over it.
Both men have big wins under their belt. Rodriguez defeated #3 ranked Brian Ortega via TKO in July this year after Ortega suffered a shoulder injury during the bout. This win came after a loss to Max Halloway in his return to UFC after a 6-month doping ban. He has wins over Chang Sung Jung and Jeremy Stephens in 2019.
Josh Emmett is currently on a 5-fights winning streak and last defeated another fellow title contender in Calvin Kattar. His previous wins have come against Dan Ige, Shane Burgos, Mirsad Bektić and Michael Johnson during this streak.
UFC 284 PPV will air from RAC Arena in Perth, Australia on February 11, 2022 in EST timing(February 12 local time).
Apart from the two title fights, UFC 284 also has Robert Whittaker vs Paulo Costa bout announced. Other bouts include the likes of Parker Porter vs Justin Tafa heavyweight bout and Joshua Culibao vs Melsik Baghdasaryan featherweight bout.