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USA Today Sports Media Group
USA Today Sports Media Group
Sport
MMA Junkie Staff

Kevin Holland returns to middleweight, meets Michal Oleksiejczuk at UFC 302 in Newark

It’s been a few years, but Kevin Holland will try to right his ship at middleweight at UFC 302.

Holland (25-11 MMA, 12-8 UFC) will move up from welterweight to meet Michal Oleksiejczuk (19-7 MMA, 7-5 UFC) at 185 pounds when the UFC returns to New Jersey next month. Promotion officials announced the new booking during the UFC on ESPN 56 broadcast from St. Louis.

UFC 302 (pay-per-view, ESPN, ESPN+) takes place June 1 at Prudential Center in Newark, N.J.

Holland has back-to-back losses to Jack Della Maddalena and Michael Page, both by decision, at welterweight. Those setbacks came on the heels of two of the biggest wins of his career – stoppages of Santiago Ponzinibbio and Michael Chiesa, the latter of which was a bonus winner at UFC 291 10 months ago.

Oleksiejczuk is just a couple months removed from a 61-second submission loss to Michel Pereira at UFC 299 in Miami. He was looking to put together a winning streak after a bonus-winning first-round TKO of Chidi Njokuani in August 2023, but now will have to try to avoid his first losing skid since 2019-2020.

With the addition, the UFC 302 lineup now includes:

MAIN CARD (Pay-per-view, 10 p.m. ET)

  • Champ Islam Makhachev vs. Dustin Poirier – for lightweight title
  • Paulo Costa vs. Sean Strickland
  • Kevin Holland vs. Michal Oleksiejczuk
  • Jailton Almeida vs. Alexandr Romanov
  • Cesar Almeida vs. Roman Kopylov

PRELIMINARY CARD (ESPN, 8 p.m. ET)

  • Randy Brown vs. Elizeu Zaleski dos Santos
  • Grant Dawson vs. Joe Solecki
  • Alex Morono vs. Niko Price
  • Jake Matthews vs. Phil Rowe

PRELIMINARY CARD (ESPN2/ESPN+, 6 p.m. ET)

  • Joselyne Edwards vs. Ailin Perez
  • Mickey Gall vs. Bassil Hafez
  • Andre Lima vs. Nyamjargal Tumendemberel
  • Tatsuro Taira vs. Joshua Van
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