Daniel Rodriguez may have done the UFC’s matchmaking announcement for it. On Saturday, the welterweight veteran put a promotional fight poster on his Instagram story showing himself, Roberto Soldic and details for a fight at UFC 336 on January 30. Bloody Elbow picked up the post after the account @DovySimuMMA flagged it on X, writing that it looked like “DRod is fighting Soldic next.”
Rodriguez has also suggested the fight is headed for the Scotiabank Arena in Toronto. Soldic hasn’t said anything publicly about when or where he fights next, and the UFC hasn’t confirmed the bout. Per Bloody Elbow, only the top two fights on the card are official so far. Everything below the co-main is still officially nothing.
How Soldic got here
Soldic came over as one of the bigger international signings of the year, a former two-weight KSW champion with a reputation for violence. His UFC debut last month at UFC 332 was a lot less tidy than the highlight reels suggested it would be. Khaos Williams dropped him twice early, and Soldic had to dig out of a hole before taking a unanimous decision on scores of 29-28, 29-27 and 29-27.
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You can read that fight two ways. The optimist sees a guy who ate two knockdowns in his first night in the Octagon, kept his head and still won the cards comfortably on two of three. The skeptic (that’s me, most days) sees a heavily hyped import who got hit clean and hurt by the first UFC opponent who stood in front of him.
The rest of UFC 336
The card already has two belts on it. Joshua Van defends the flyweight title against Manel Kape in the main event. Islam Makhachev was originally supposed to headline before he passed on a fight with Carlos Prates. So Prates now meets Michael Morales for the interim welterweight title in the co-main, and the winner gets Makhachev next summer to unify the division.
That makes Soldic vs. Rodriguez, if it holds, a welterweight fight on a card built around the welterweight title picture. Not a bad spot to be for a newcomer trying to climb fast.
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Quick take
I’m not handing out a pick on a fight that exists only on a guy’s Instagram story, but I’ll tell you how I’m going to look at it when a line drops. The market is going to price Soldic off the KSW résumé and all the noise that came with his signing. I’m going to price him off the two times he went down against Williams. Rodriguez is a welterweight veteran with nothing to lose against a guy the UFC clearly wants to build, and that’s the profile of a live underdog if the number gets silly. If the books hang Soldic as a big favorite off one shaky decision win, I’ll be the grumpy guy in the corner taking the other side. Official confirmation should come before January 30, and I’ll be watching which way the money moves the first morning it’s posted.
