Yair Rodriguez is coming back, and the guy who’s supposed to welcome him back is the one who broke the news. Steve Garcia posted on Instagram that he’ll face the former interim featherweight champion at UFC 335 on Dec. 12 at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas.
The UFC hasn’t made it official yet, according to Bloody Elbow. Garcia didn’t wait. He dropped a promotional poster with the caption “We locking in for another one before the end of the year,” and added, “El Pantera vs Mean Machine⚔️ this is must see tv.” That’s a fighter announcing his own fight with a sword emoji, which I’ll allow, because at least he spelled out the names.
Rodriguez (21-5, 1 NC) hasn’t competed since April 2025, when he beat Patricio Pitbull by unanimous decision at UFC 314 and spoiled the Bellator legend’s UFC debut. That win stopped a two-fight skid made up of stoppage losses to Alexander Volkanovski and Brian Ortega. By fight night he’ll have been gone about 20 months.
He was supposed to be back sooner. Rodriguez was booked to headline Noche UFC against Jean Silva in September, then pulled out with an injury several weeks before the card. Jose Delgado took the Silva fight on short notice, and that guy deserves a drink on me for picking up the phone.
The bigger pattern is the one that follows Rodriguez around. MMA Mania counted just eight appearances for the 33-year-old since the start of 2019. Injuries and long breaks keep cutting into a career that, on talent alone, should have far more fights on the ledger.
Garcia (19-6) is No. 14 in the featherweight rankings and coming off a rough night. Diego Lopes knocked him out in the second round at UFC Freedom 250, the White House card in June, ending a seven-fight win streak. That run included wins over David Onama, Calvin Kattar and Chase Hooper, with six of the seven ending inside the distance and four Performance of the Night bonuses along the way. A win over a former interim champ is easily the biggest name he could put on his resume.
The matchup lands on a loaded card. Charles Oliveira and Lopes headline, Alex Pereira meets Sergei Pavlovich in the co-main, and Brandon Moreno fights Charles Johnson on the undercard. So Garcia gets to fight on the same night as the man who just flattened him, which is a nice little bit of motivation sitting two fights up the bill.
My take: this is good matchmaking. Garcia comes forward, hunts stoppages and doesn’t care whose name is across the cage, and Rodriguez at his best is the most creative kicker in the division, the kind of fighter who can end a fight from angles nobody else attempts. The risk is all on Yair’s side. He’s been out for nearly two years, his last two losses were stoppages, and Garcia lives off guys who are a half-step slow. If Rodriguez makes the walk on Dec. 12 healthy, I’d still lean his way. That “if” has been carrying a lot of weight since 2019.
