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