Vinicius Oliveira and Pat Sabatini are booked to fight each other at a UFC Fight Night on Jan. 23, a featherweight pairing that puts a bonus-collecting Brazilian with one win at 145 pounds across from a 35-year-old riding the best stretch of his UFC career. Laerte Viana first reported the matchup, and MMA Junkie later confirmed it through two people with knowledge of the booking, who spoke anonymously because the UFC hasn’t made it official. No venue has been named, though MMA Junkie lists the Meta Apex in Las Vegas as the frontrunner. Nothing else has been announced for the card.
The date sits in a crowded stretch of the early 2027 calendar. The UFC returns to Dallas on Jan. 16, and UFC 336 lands in Toronto on Jan. 30, so this one fills the Saturday in between.
Oliveira’s road back
Oliveira (24-4 MMA, 5-1 UFC) got his contract with a first-round knockout on Dana White’s Contender Series in 2023, then made an expensive first impression in his UFC debut: a knockout of Bernardo Sopaj that earned both Performance of the Night and Fight of the Night. Three straight decision wins followed, including one over Ricky Simon at UFC 303, and that run bought him a Fight Night main event against Mario Bautista last February. Bautista submitted him. It remains his only UFC loss and his only UFC headliner.
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He came back in June at featherweight. The original plan was Giga Chikadze, but Oliveira ended up facing longtime veteran Andre Fili instead and stopped him with strikes late in Round 2, picking up his third Fight of the Night bonus in the process. He’s still outside the featherweight Top 15 in both the media rankings and the Meta rankings.
Sabatini’s quiet climb
Sabatini (22-5 MMA, 9-2 UFC), a former Cage Fury FC champion, arrived in the UFC in 2021 and won his first four before Damon Jackson knocked him out the following year. He answered by submitting Lucas Almeida, then got knocked out again by Diego Lopes at UFC 295, well before Lopes became a featherweight title challenger.
Since that night he hasn’t lost. Jonathan Pearce, Joanderson Brito, Chepe Mariscal at UFC 322 in Madison Square Garden, and William Gomis at UFC 328 at the Prudential Center make four in a row. That streak has him at No. 7 in the Meta rankings, one spot ahead of Pavel Andrusca, while the media Top 15 still leaves him off entirely. Brito, one of the men he beat, sits at No. 12 on that Meta list.
Quick take
I like this booking more for what it asks of Oliveira. One finish of a veteran in a new division doesn’t make a contender, and I’m wary of anyone ready to anoint him off the Fili fight and a shelf full of bonus checks. Sabatini is a different kind of test. He’s been knocked out twice in the UFC and kept coming back, and he has spent the last four fights quietly beating people while the media panel looked elsewhere. If Oliveira wins on Jan. 23, he walks into a ranked number. If Sabatini wins, he makes it five straight at 35, and the voters who still haven’t put him in their Top 15 will need a better reason than the one they’ve been using.
