A 2017 Contender Series winner will finally get a crack at the UFC’s main roster in 2019.
Kyle Stewart will meet Chance Rencountre on Saturday at UFC on ESPN+ at Barclays Center in the New York City borough of Brooklyn. MMA Fighting confirmed an initial report by Damon Martin.
Stewart, 29-year-old Marine Corps sergeant from Tempe, Ariz., has an 11-1 record which includes a second-round TKO of Jason Jackson on the Contender Series Season 1, Episode 3. He’s 3-1 since then and has moved his camp in recent months to The MMA Lab.
Rencountre (12-3), an Alliance MMA product, has eight finishes among his 12 career victories. He’s looking to shake off a unanimous decision loss to Belal Muhammad last June in his UFC debut at UFC Utica.
Stewart is a replacement for Dwight Grant, who was not cleared to compete by the New York State Athletic Commission. Grant, for his part, was supposed to be a replacement for Randy Brown, who was recently removed from the card due to undisclosed reasons.