Yoel Romero vs. Jacare II Headlines UFC’s Return To Florida

The UFC has a new main event fight for Yoel Romero for April 27’s UFC on ESPN 3.

ESPN’s Brett Okamoto reported tonight that Dana White confirmed that a Romero vs. Ronaldo “Jacare” Souza rematch will headline the card from Sunrise, Florida. The fight was finalized earlier today. The event will air on ESPN+ from the BB&T Center.

Romero was initially slated to face rising knockout artist Paulo Costa. For reasons unknown, the UFC decided to go with Souza instead. Romero was competing on a Spanish-language obstacle show and only recently confirmed he could make the April 27 event.

The headlining fight will be a rematch of their close affair at UFC 194 in 2015, which Romero won by split decision. Romero was on a massive roll at the time and eventually earned an interim title fight against Robert Whittaker. But he lost two fights to Whittaker. His only victory in his last three bouts was a brutal knockout over Luke Rockhold at 2018’s UFC 220.

Fellow longtime vet Souza was last seen knocking out former champ Chris Weidman in a vicious war at November’s UFC 230. He’s been one of the top middleweights in the UFC, but has never got a title shot despite fighting the best. With Whittaker now on the shelf due to surgery and Kelvin Gastelum fighting Israel Adesanya for the interim title earlier in April, it’s no certainty the winner of this fight will get one either.

What it will be is an excellent match-up. The new featured bout will also settle the score of their closely-contested first fight.