Demian Pinas and Baisangur Susurkayev are going to fight each other, and they’re doing it Dec. 12 at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas on the UFC 335 card.
Vestnik MMA broke the booking first. MMA Fighting followed, citing multiple people with knowledge of the UFC’s plans. Charles Oliveira and Diego Lopes headline the event with the BMF title on the line, so this middleweight scrap lands on a card that already had a lot going for it.
These two have been talking about each other pretty much since they walked into the UFC, and the matchmakers apparently got tired of listening. Good for them. The usual playbook for a pair of unbeaten prospects is to keep them apart, feed each of them a few more opponents and sell the fight two years from now. The UFC skipped that step entirely.
Pinas earned his contract on the Contender Series in September 2025 and has been a problem for everyone in front of him since. “The Baba Yaga” is 3-0 in the octagon, all three wins came in the first round, and his total cage time across those fights is a little over eight minutes. That’s not much more than a round and a half of work for three wins. His latest was a knockout of Andrey Pulyaev at UFC 332 in October.
Susurkayev also came through the Contender Series and is also 3-0 in the UFC with three finishes. The difference is mileage. The 25-year-old has had to grind harder for his wins, and his most recent one came late, when he submitted Djorden Santos in the third round at UFC 328 in May.
“The Real Hunter” also owns one of the stranger starts on the roster. He won his DWCS fight to earn a contract, then four days later picked up another finish at UFC 319 in August 2025. Four days. Most guys are still icing their shins and arguing with their managers about the next date by then.
So you’ve got one guy who hasn’t needed a second round in the UFC and another who has already proven he can find a finish when the fight drags into the third. That’s the whole fight on paper. If Pinas lands early the way he has three straight times, people will be saying his name before the main card even starts. If Susurkayev gets out of the first round, the fight changes, and Pinas has to show something none of his UFC opponents have made him show yet.
This is my favorite kind of booking: two hungry guys who don’t like each other, no protection, no waiting for the perfect moment. One of them leaves Las Vegas on Dec. 12 at 3-1 in the UFC, and the other gets to stop talking about it.
