Just over a month out and there has been a change to the UFC Fight Night Melbourne fight card with Australian MMA veteran Kyle Noke (22-9-1) receiving a new opponent for his welterweight bout.
Following a reported training injury to booked opponent Dominique Steele (14-8-0), Noke will now face a former training partner in Omari “Wolverine” Akhmedov (15-4-0). The UFC has yet to officially announce this change to the card and no further detail is yet known about the extent of the injury to Steele. News of the change up came via Fox Sports.
Both fighters are coming off a two fight losing streak and will be highly motivated to change their current trajectory with a big win in what is becoming a strong local card to add to the UFC’s bumper schedule rounding out the year.
Akhmedov is coming off a third round TKO loss to Brazilian Elizeu Zaleski Dos Santos in April of this year that earned the pair a Fight of the Night bonus at UFC on Fox: Teixeira vs Evans, while Noke is looking to make up for his second round submission loss to Keita Nakamura at UFC: McDonald vs Linker back in July.
The event, which is headlined by a middleweight clash between Luke Rockhold and Ronaldo Souza, takes place Sunday, November 27 at Rod Laver Arena in Melbourne. The updated lineup can be found here.
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