Geoff Neal is going home to fight for his spot. The Texas-born welterweight will face Chris Curtis at UFC Dallas on January 16 at the American Airlines Center, which will be the UFC’s first event of 2027. Heavy.com confirmed the matchup through multiple sources.
The matchup has an ugly detail baked in. Neither man is ranked right now. Neal dropped his last two fights and fell out of the welterweight rankings for the first time in seven years. Curtis was ranked at middleweight before he cut down to 170, and he hasn’t cracked the rankings since the move.
Neal Needs This One Badly
Remember when Neal looked like a title contender in waiting? He earned his contract in 2017 on the very first season of the Contender Series, then ran off five straight wins, including victories over Belal Muhammad and Mike Perry. He followed that with back-to-back losses to former title challenger Stephen Thompson and Neil Magny. He stopped the slide at the end of 2021 with a close win over Santiago Ponzinibbio, then knocked out Vicente Luque.
That set up the Shavkat Rakhmonov fight, a genuine barnburner that Neal lost to a rear-naked choke in the final minute. He hasn’t been the same since. Neal has won just one of his last four, and that lone win came in 2024 against former champion Rafael Dos Anjos, who suffered a leg injury. Uros Medic and Carlos Prates finished him in his two most recent outings.
Curtis Keeps Coming Back
Curtis, 39, has one of the stranger paths in the division. The former CES MMA champion scored a third-round finish of Sean Lally on the Contender Series in 2018, and Dana White still passed on signing him. He went to the PFL, retired twice in 2019 and unretired both times almost right away, then strung together four more regional wins before the UFC finally called.
“Action Man” made up for lost time fast. He knocked out Phil Hawes in his debut, knocked out Brendan Allen and outpointed BJJ ace Rodolfo Vieira by unanimous decision. Jack Hermansson snapped that streak with a unanimous decision in 2022, and things got rocky after that. In his next six fights, Curtis beat only Joaquin Buckley (by knockout) and Marc-André Barriault (by split decision).
He dropped to welterweight last year and beat Max Griffin by unanimous decision in his first fight at the weight. He then lost his most recent bout to Myktybek Orolbai. A win over Neal could put a top 20 welterweight in his path next.
Also on the card so far is Chidi Njokuani vs. Ignacio Bahamondes.
Quick Take
This is the right fight, and I love it for exactly the reason it’s scary for both guys. Neal gets a home crowd and an opponent with no ranking to protect. He also gets a 39-year-old who has been knocking people out since before Dana White would give him a contract. Neal has been finished twice in a row, and Curtis hits like he’s still mad about 2018. If Neal can’t win this one in Dallas on January 16, it’s hard to see where his road back to the rankings starts.
