◈Off the Record

Noche UFC: Silva vs. Delgado

What the fighters are carrying beyond their record.

Main Card

Jean Silva

VSFeatherweight

Jose Miguel Delgado

The night "Lord" was born

Silva was born in Foz do Iguaçu, Paraná, on December 13, 1996. He grew up poor. Before fighting paid, he delivered on a motorbike and sold goods on the street around the Florianópolis area.
His mother was raped by three men. He has said she killed the three men and was imprisoned for it.
His brother was shot and killed in front of him. Silva has said he counted five gunshots and held his brother's hand as he died. He has said his "Lord" walkout persona, and the barking, trace back to that night. His wife Carol is the one who talks it down when it lingers past the cage door.
This is Silva's second straight Noche UFC main event. Last year in San Antonio he was finished by Diego Lopes. He came back in January with a decision win over Arnold Allen.

From spectator to main event

Delgado was born in Yuma, Arizona, the youngest of seven kids in an immigrant household. After high school he moved to Phoenix with his sister and brother-in-law to chase fighting instead of college. He has said he was scared to do it.
Before the sport paid, he worked insulation, warehouse, hospital, and restaurant jobs. He also worked as a bouncer and a garbage man.
Three weeks ago he beat Austin Bashi in Oklahoma City and was planning to attend Noche UFC as a fan. Then Yair Rodriguez withdrew from the main event with an injury and the UFC called. Delgado said yes to headlining in his home state, a three-hour drive from where he grew up.
He is a large betting underdog against the No. 6-ranked Silva. He has called Silva's persona "an illusion" and called him a coward.

Brandon Moreno

VSFlyweight

Joseph Morales

The independence weekend he chased

Moreno was born in Tijuana. He is Mexico's first UFC champion, a two-time flyweight titleholder who has beaten Deiveson Figueiredo, Brandon Royval, Kai Kara-France, and Amir Albazi.
He missed the first three Noche UFC events to scheduling conflicts and minor injuries. This year he told his manager and the UFC to offer him any opponent, as long as it was at Noche. "I don't care who," he said.
He is on a two-fight losing streak, to Tatsuro Taira and Lone'er Kavanagh. A loss here would be the first three-fight skid of his career. He is 32.

His son called this fight first

Morales was born in Clovis, California. His nickname, Bopo, comes from a cousin who couldn't pronounce his name as a kid.
He went 1-2 in his first UFC run and was released in 2019. He spent three years out of the sport, then rebuilt through Cage Warriors and an A1 Combat title before winning The Ultimate Fighter 33, submitting Alibi Idiris in the final. He has submitted both opponents since returning to the UFC.
He has said his oldest son has one fight in mind above all others: Brandon Moreno. His son watched Moreno win the belt and beat the man Morales once lost to, and has talked about this matchup ever since. Now it is real.

Manon Fiorot

VSW. Flyweight

Alexa Grasso

Years on standby, never the belt

Fiorot was born in Nice, France, on February 17, 1990. She started karate at seven, made the French national karate team, and won a French snowboarding championship before turning to MMA in 2018.
She has beaten three former title challengers, including Rose Namajunas, and went the full five rounds with Valentina Shevchenko in a 2025 title fight. She has also served as a standby fighter for a UFC title bout without getting the call.
With Shevchenko out injured and the belt vacated, this is a No. 2 vs. No. 3 matchup with a title shot on the line.

Built at home, never left

Grasso was born in Guadalajara, Jalisco, on August 9, 1993. She has never left. She still trains at Lobo Gym, a family-owned gym in her home city, under her father Luis and her uncle Francisco.
In 2023 she submitted Valentina Shevchenko to become the first Mexican-born UFC champion, the only person to ever make Shevchenko tap. She is no longer champion; before this year, she had dropped back-to-back fights to the division's No. 1 and No. 2 ranked contenders. In March she answered with a first-round finish of Maycee Barber so violent that Barber was hospitalized afterward.
"I think it's a fight that has to be," Grasso said of facing Fiorot. Both are chasing another shot at a title that's currently empty.

Waldo Cortes-Acosta

VSHeavyweight

Curtis Blaydes

An elbow ended one dream

Cortes-Acosta was born in Fundación, Barahona Province, Dominican Republic, on October 3, 1991. He pitched in baseball, including time in a minor-league organization, until an elbow injury ended it. He didn't start fighting until around age 25.
His nickname, Salsa Boy, comes from his coach, after Cortes-Acosta kept telling him in training he was going to "salsa" opponents up.
He's coming off his first-ever loss to a top-five opponent, a decision to Alexander Volkov. Before that, he knocked out Derrick Lewis and finished Ante Delija despite an eye poke that left him, by his own estimate, at 20 percent vision in one eye. He chose to keep fighting anyway.

One minute from the belt

Blaydes was born in Naperville, Illinois, and raised in Chicago with four siblings. He won a state wrestling title at De La Salle, went the NJCAA route through Harper College, and still holds the record for most takedowns by a heavyweight in UFC history. He has never won a UFC title. He came within a minute of one, in an interim title fight against Tom Aspinall.
In April he fought Josh Hokit in a heavyweight war that set a UFC record for combined significant strikes. Blaydes lost the decision and left with a fractured orbital bone and a broken nose. Both men were taken to the hospital in the same ambulance.
He has spoken about having a stutter his whole life, one he says he inherited from his father.

David Martinez

VSBantamweight

Dan Ige

Hospital mornings, cage nights

Martinez was born in Ecatepec de Morelos, State of Mexico. He studied medicine at UNAM and became a licensed orthopedic surgeon. For a stretch of his career he worked hospital mornings, seven a.m. starts, then trained and fought in the evenings. He has since paused clinical practice to fight full-time.
He is 14-1, with wins over UFC veterans Rob Font and Marlon Vera, and has won ten straight since 2021.

A weight class he swore off

Ige was born and raised in Haleiwa, on Oahu's North Shore. He wrestled at Wartburg College in Iowa, part of the 2011 team that won the NCAA Division III national championship.
He has dropped four of his last five fights at featherweight. Rather than take an easier match to stabilize, he asked to move to bantamweight for the first time in his UFC career and specifically requested Martinez as the opponent. He has said there was a time he "would never consider" the weight class. He ran a practice cut first to confirm he could safely make 135.
He often credits his Christian faith after fights.

Tommy McMillen

VSFeatherweight

Marwan Rahiki

South in an Accord, no AC

McMillen is from Great Falls, Montana. His father was a local pro fighter who coached wrestling; Tommy was on the mats at three and fighting at five. He won three straight Montana state wrestling titles at the same high school as Tim Welch.
In 2017 he packed an old Honda Accord with no air conditioning and drove to Arizona to take a spare room in Sean O'Malley's new house. He has trained alongside O'Malley ever since.
He is 11-0, with two first-round-or-better UFC stoppages and two performance bonuses in his first two fights, and asked the UFC directly for a spot on this card.

Left Rabat at 19, unbeaten since

Rahiki was born in Rabat, Morocco, on May 10, 2002. He grew up street fighting there and started kickboxing at 14, partly because his father was a fan of Moroccan-Dutch kickboxer Badr Hari. At 19 he left his family in Morocco and moved to Australia alone to chase MMA full-time. His family still lives in Rabat.
His nickname, Freaky, came from Australian fans after he opened his career with four straight first-round knockouts. He is 9-0 and has never gone to a judges' scorecard: eight knockouts, one submission.

Prelims

Tim Elliott

VSFlyweight

Edgar Chairez

Five rounds with DJ, still here

Elliott was born in Arkansas City, Kansas, in 1986. In 2016 he fought Demetrious Johnson for the flyweight title, came close to a first-round guillotine, and pushed the dominant champion the full five rounds before losing a decision. He has stayed a fixture of the division ever since.
He is currently ranked No. 12 and coming off a loss.

"It does bother me a lot"

Chairez is a Mexican flyweight fighting his eighth UFC bout. His family is from Mexicali and Phoenix. He is unranked.
This week he said he was upset that Tommy McMillen, a UFC fighter with one fight, was placed on the main card of a Mexican Independence Day event over him. "They put Tommy McMillen on the main card, and he's a rookie," Chairez said in Spanish, on Hablemos MMA. "I'm Mexican. I have seven fights. I sell a ton of tickets... It does bother me a lot. I feel very underappreciated by the company."
He is coming off a submission win over Bruno Silva in June. He has said he isn't taking Elliott lightly despite the age gap.

Ignacio Bahamondes

VSWelterweight

Muslim Salikhov

Left Chile alone at 16

Bahamondes was born in Santiago, Chile. His father, Manuel, was a South American WKN kickboxing champion; his maternal great-grandfather was a Chilean boxer with more than 80 professional fights. His younger brother won an MMA title of his own at 16.
At 16, Bahamondes left Chile alone for Miami, not speaking English, to chase a UFC career. He is now a father of two.
After back-to-back losses at lightweight, he moves up to welterweight for the first time since a 2020 Contender Series win. His record at 170 is 7-2.

42, still the King of Kung Fu

Salikhov was born in Buynaksk, Dagestan, in 1984. He is a five-time Wushu Sanda world champion and, in 2006, became the first non-Chinese fighter to win Sanda's "King of Kung Fu" tournament in China, where he remains a revered figure.
He is 42, hasn't fought since a 63-second knockout loss last November, and is 14 years older than Bahamondes.

Yousri Belgaroui

VSMiddleweight

Djorden Santos

A degree, then the cage instead

Belgaroui was born in Amsterdam to a Tunisian father and a Dutch mother. He has a university degree in public governance and worked security before fighting paid the bills.
He built his career in Glory kickboxing, where he fought Alex Pereira three times (1-2). In 2022 he moved his family to Connecticut to train under Glover Teixeira, arriving just as Pereira was preparing for his first fight with Israel Adesanya. A former rival became a daily training partner.
He was booked to fight Kelvin Gastelum, the bigger name and clearer measuring stick. Gastelum pulled out for undisclosed reasons; Djorden Santos stepped in on short notice instead.

Fourteen years old, sixty dollars a week

Santos was born in Belo Horizonte, Brazil. At 16 he watched Vitor Belfort knock out Dan Henderson live, near his home; he has said it awakened something in him. He was overweight at the time and ran with an organized supporters' group for a local soccer club. He started training at 13 to channel his aggression.
At 14 he left home for another state to train full-time. His mother sent him $60 a week. He worked as a grill cook, a security guard, a tent assembler, and a food delivery driver before fighting paid off.
He is 1-2 in the UFC, coming off a submission loss, and took this fight on short notice after Gastelum withdrew.

Drakkar Klose

VSLightweight

Tommy Gantt

A year gone, wants Dariush back

Klose is coming off a win over Edson Barboza in August 2025, and hasn't fought since due to a year-long injury layoff. He is 16-3-1.
He has said he wants a rematch with Beneil Dariush, one of only two men to ever beat him, if he gets past Gantt.

Didn't start until 30, hasn't lost

Gantt is from Belleville, Illinois, one of eight kids. He wrestled at NC State, became an All-American and ACC champion, and later coached the Wolfpack wrestling team. He also holds a master's degree in social work.
He didn't start MMA until he was 30. When no one would book an undefeated All-American with no tape, one of his coaches started cold-calling promoters in different states, and Gantt fought whoever was available, sometimes at a different weight class than his own. He fought roughly a dozen times in just over a year to build a record before reaching the UFC.
He is 12-0, trains under Daniel Cormier, and has three children he's said are the reason he does this. This is his first UFC fight outside the APEX, against the toughest opponent of his career.

Rafa Garcia

VSLightweight

Rongzhu

TKO last year, back for more

Garcia was born in Brawley, California, to Mexican parents, and grew up in El Centro. He started training at 13 after his father took him to a gym for self-defense.
He finished Jared Gordon by TKO at last year's Noche UFC and is now on a three-fight winning streak, 5-1 in his last six. His only loss in that stretch came to Grant Dawson. His only career loss to a fighter on this same card came to Drakkar Klose, back in 2022.

Weighed in happy, then found out

Rongzhu started training in Sanda at 12 in China. He built a 17-3 regional record under the WLF banner, mostly by finish, and debuted in the UFC in 2021 at 21.
In one fight, he stepped on the scale, celebrated making weight, then discovered he'd actually missed by two pounds and couldn't cut the rest in time. The fight went ahead at catchweight and he forfeited a chunk of his purse.
He is 26, on a three-fight winning streak, and this will be his toughest UFC opponent to date.

Sean King III

VSFeatherweight

Jessie Rosas

Direct entry, no Contender Series needed

King is 22, from New Orleans, where he still trains at Mid City MMA under Shawn Gayton. He's 6-0 as a pro, with three finishes, and skipped Dana White's Contender Series entirely for a direct UFC booking after an amateur career with no losses. This is his UFC debut.

Cut, then un-cut, still debuting

Rosas is the older brother of UFC bantamweight Raul Rosas Jr. He is 8-1, on a three-fight win streak, and was expected to debut at UFC Vegas 120 last month before doctors flagged a skin condition they feared was herpes; the UFC released him outright rather than reschedule. His family maintains it was mat burn. Weeks later, the UFC brought him back for this short-notice booking, moving him up from bantamweight for the fight.

JJ Aldrich

VSW. Flyweight

Regina Tarin

Born in a shelter, still going

Aldrich was born in Denver to a homeless single mother; her father had gone to prison before she was born. She grew up in shelters with her mother and older sister until her mother started a childcare business that let them move out.
She's No. 14 in the rankings, has won four of her last five, and enters as a significant underdog against the unbeaten Tarin.

Kill Bill, 21, still undefeated

Tarin is 21, from Mexico City, nicknamed Kill Bill. She's 8-0 and made her UFC debut in February on short notice, winning a decision. She has said her mother and brother are her main motivation, and that she wants to use her platform to help more kids play sports and learn to defend themselves.
She's a significant betting favorite in her second UFC fight, with a six-inch height edge on the veteran Aldrich.