The Summertime is always a big time of the year for the UFC as evidenced by the big events they put on with all of them culminating at the end of International Fight Week. This year, the end event of that will be UFC 239 on July 6.
But before we get there, the promotion has to head through Chicago, Illinois for UFC 238. And with plenty of fantastic bouts already on the bill, it continues to get more as finalization looms.
The UFC announced on Tuesday that another great strawweight match-up has been added to the card. The No. 9 ranked contender, Karolina Kowalkiewicz (12-4) makes a quick turnaround to face one of Mexico’s top prospects, Alexa Grasso (10-2) at the June 8 event.
For Poland’s Kowalkiewicz, her last time out came at UFC Philadelphia just a few weeks ago when she suffered a unanimous decision loss to Michelle Waterson. The loss put Kowalkiewicz on a two-fight losing streak with the first coming at the hands of Jessica Andrade in September 2018.
Grasso, on the other hand, hasn’t fought since May 2018 when Tatiana Suarez became the first woman to finish her as she would get the win with a second-round submission (rear-naked choke).
Since then, the 25-year old Grasso has been booked to fight on three separate occasions. Once against Angela Hill that saw Grasso have to pull out with a knee injury, and the most recent two times when she was set to face Marina Rodriguez. Both bout schedulings would fall through due to injuries from each fighter. The last of the two was actually supposed to take place at UFC Philadelphia. Rodriguez would face Jessica Aguilar instead.
The entire UFC 238 fight card as it currently stands can be seen below.
- Bantamweight – 135lbs: (C) – (Fly C)Henry Cejudo vs Marlon Moraes
- Flyweight – 125lbs: (C)Valentina Shevchenko vs. Jessica Eye
- Strawweight – 115lbs: Tatiana Suarez vs. Nina Ansaroff
- Bantamweight: Pedro Munhoz vs Aljamain Sterling
- Bantamweight: Jimmie Rivera vs Petr Yan
- Flyweight: Katlyn Chookagian vs. Joanne Calderwood
- Strawweight: Karolina Kowalkiewicz vs Alexa Grasso
- Heavyweight – 207-265lbs: Tai Tuivasa vs. Blagoy Ivanov
- Strawweight: Felice Herrig vs Yan Xiaonan
- Featherweight – 145lbs: Ricardo Lamas vs Calvin Kattar
This article first appeared on BJPenn.com on 4/9/2019