Pavel Andrusca and Mahammadali Osmanli are headed for a bantamweight fight on Dec. 5 at UFC Fight Night 295 in Riyadh. Nolan King broke the news on X Thursday, citing multiple sources, and MMA Junkie followed with a full report. Two people with knowledge of the matchup told the outlet about the booking but asked to stay anonymous because the UFC hasn’t made it official yet.
This is two prospects with momentum getting thrown at each other in their second trip to the Octagon. Nobody gets a soft landing here.
Andrusca walks in at 9-0, with a 1-0 UFC record and a UAE Warriors title on his resume. His promotional debut in September came a division north at featherweight, and he beat Nathaniel Wood by unanimous decision. That’s a heavy first assignment for anyone, and he handled it. The performance landed less than two months after he ran through 13-2 Gexipengchu in a little over two minutes, which tells you he doesn’t mind a busy calendar.
View post on X
The weight class caught some people off guard. When a fan on X asked whether the fight was at 145 or 135, King answered with the number and added: “Perhaps being overlooked is the fact that Andrusca is a bantamweight despite the impressive featherweight debut.” So the guy who just outpointed Wood at featherweight is now coming home to his natural division. Bantamweight should pay attention to that.
Osmanli sits at 12-2 overall and 0-1 in the UFC, and that zero comes with an asterisk. His “The Ultimate Fighter 34” final ended less than halfway through Round 1 when he landed an illegal knee on Ilimbek Akylbek. Akylbek couldn’t continue, and the win went to him. So Osmanli’s official UFC introduction is a loss he took while he was the one landing the damaging strike. That’s a strange way to exit a reality show final, and it hasn’t cooled the interest in him one bit.
The finishing numbers explain why. Ten of Osmanli’s 12 professional wins came inside the distance. Andrusca has gone the full 15 minutes against a ranked-caliber veteran and also shown he can close a fight in two minutes. One of these undefeated-feeling resumes is going to take a real dent in Riyadh.
View post on X
The pairing joins a growing Saudi Arabia card that, per MMA Junkie, also includes Jafel Filho vs. Bruno Silva, Ion Cutelaba vs. Magomed Tuchalov, Jun Yong Park vs. Marco Tulio, Levan Chokheli vs. Islam Dulatov, Abdul Hussein vs. Hecher Sosa, Ivan Gnizditskiy vs. Uran Satybaldiev, and Matthieu Duclos vs. Modestino Rodrigues.
My take: I love this fight, and I’m a little surprised the UFC made it. Matchmakers could have fed either of these two a safe veteran and padded the hype for another year. Instead they’re asking Andrusca to prove the Wood win wasn’t a fluke at his real weight, and they’re asking Osmanli to get the clean UFC win the illegal knee took from him. The loser still has a career. The winner has a 135-pound name people will be saying a lot in 2027, and if Osmanli keeps his knees legal this time, I don’t think it’s going to the scorecards.
